“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A species that senses a lack of this quality can in one way or another destroy its offspring — not because they could not survive otherwise, but because the quality of that survival would bring about vast suffering, for example, so distorting the nature of life as to almost make a mockery of it. Each species seeks for the development of its abilities and capacities in a framework in which safety is a medium for action. Danger in that context exists under certain conditions clearly known to the animals, clearly defined: The prey is known, for example, as is the hunter. But even the natural prey of another animal does not fear the “hunter” when the hunter animal is full of belly, nor will the hunter then attack.

The species is in a state of transition, one of many. This one began, generally speaking, when the species tried to step apart from nature in order to develop the unique kind of consciousness that is presently your own. That consciousness is not a finished product, however, but one meant to change, [to] evolve and develop.” Certain artificial divisions were made along the way that must now be dispensed with.

Religious, scientific, medical, and cultural communications stress the existence of danger, minimize the purpose of the species or of any individual member of it, or see mankind as the one erratic, half-insane member of an otherwise orderly realm of nature. Any or all of the above beliefs are held by various systems of thought. All of these, however, strain the individual’s biological sense of integrity, reinforce ideas of danger, and shrink the area of psychological safety that is necessary to maintain the quality possible in life. The body’s defense systems become confused to varying degrees.

(Pause at 10:15.) Chapter 2: “ ‘Mass Meditations.’ (A one-minute pause.) ‘Health’ Plans for Disease. Epidemics of Beliefs, and Effective Mental ‘Inoculations’ Against Despair.”

Many of my readers are familiar with private meditation, when concentration is focused in one particular area. There are many methods and schools of thought here, but a highly suggestive state of mind results, in which spiritual, mental, and physical goals are sought. It is impossible to meditate without a goal, for that intent is itself a purpose. Unfortunately, many of your public health programs, and commercial statements through the various media, provide you with mass meditations of a most deplorable kind. I refer to those in which the specific symptoms of various diseases are given, in which the individual is further told to examine the body with those symptoms in mind. I also refer to those statements that just as unfortunately specify diseases for which the individual may experience no symptoms of an observable kind, but is cautioned that these disastrous physical events may be happening despite his or her feelings of good health. Here the generalized fears fostered by religious, scientific, and cultural beliefs are often given as blueprints of diseases in which a person can find a specific focus — the individual can say: “Of course, I feel listless, or panicky, or unsafe since I have such-and-such a disease.”

If you do not buy headache potions, your uncle or your neighbor may be out of business and not able to support his family, and therefore lack the means to buy your wares. You cannot disconnect one area of life from another. En masse, your private beliefs form your cultural reality. Your society is not a thing in itself apart from you, but the result of the individual beliefs of each person in it. There is no stratum of society that you do not in one way or another affect. Your religions stress sin. Your medical profession stresses disease. Your orderly sciences stress the chaotic and accidental theories of creation. Your psychologies stress men as victims of their backgrounds. Your most advanced thinkers emphasize man’s rape of the planet, or focus upon the future disaster that will overtake the world, or see men once again as victims of the stars.

1. When Seth came through with “You get what you concentrate upon,” I remembered that he’d first spoken that sentence some years ago — and that soon afterward I’d made a little paper sign bearing those words and taped it to a wall in one of the two apartments we occupied in Elmira, New York. Had I dated the excerpt? I knew that a few years later the sign had accompanied us on our move to the hill house just outside the city, where we live now. After tonight’s session I found it — again upon a wall — with the date: February 26, 1972. From our records I learned that I’d taken Seth’s quotation from a personal session Jane held while we were on vacation in Marathon, a resort community in the Florida Keys.

The session had been an impromptu one, and developed on our last night in Marathon because we’d been worrying about our goals in life, and how significant a part the Seth material might play in our affairs. We’d felt strong attractions toward what seemed to be a simpler, more open and pleasant life in the Keys, where the weather was excellent all year, and living in a trailer was an accepted way of life. Yet we didn’t think we could afford it. The Seth Material had been published in mid-1970, but sales were slow, and Seth Speaks wasn’t out yet; we’d just finished correcting the page proofs for that work. I’d given up my commercial art job before we went on vacation, and didn’t know what I’d end up doing, besides helping Jane as much as I could.

As I suppose is almost always the case with tourists in romantic, faraway places, we had many ties back home. Although Jane’s father, and my own, had died the previous year (in 1971), our mothers were still living: Jane’s in a nursing home in upstate New York, and mine at the Butts family home in Sayre, Pennsylvania, which is only 18 miles from Elmira and just south of the New York State border. (While Jane and I were away my mother stayed with one of my brothers, who lives some 60 miles below Sayre.)

“You have a relationship not only unique, the two of you, but one that also serves as a springboard for creativity. You have talents and abilities that carry with them satisfactions that you both often blithely take for granted: They are so a part of your existences that you are not even aware of them.

2. As Jane wrote for this note: “We think that the dangers of negative suggestion are as real as the physical ones that are connected with the overuse of X-rays, say. Certainly some women have uncovered cancers through self-examinations, and in so doing perhaps saved their lives. There’s no way of knowing, though, what part negative suggestion might have played in their diseased conditions to begin with.

“With some women, not conducting regular self-examinations would rouse as many fears as doing them — and since those women’s beliefs follow official medical ones so strictly, they’re much better off with the examinations. In this and all instances regarding health, each woman should weigh all the evidence, examine her beliefs, and make her own decisions.”

Now, there’s much confusion on the part of women over whether to have mammograms. The process isn’t infallible, unfortunately; also, misinterpretations of its results have caused a number of cancer-free women to undergo mastectomies — often radical ones — when they didn’t have to. Moreover, each of these individuals has to live with the belief that they’ve had cancer, and must constantly be on the alert for any signs of its recurrence — signs they do not find. At the same time, they are subjected to even more X-ray examinations on a regular basis. They can also have insurance and employment problems (as can many other cancer patients).

A controversy related to that over mammograms, but one that hasn’t been nearly as well publicized, concerns “prophylactic subcutaneous mastectomy” — the process by which some women elect to have their breasts removed before they actually develop cancer in one or both of them. These women have been told that statistically they’re “high risk” prospects for cancer. Involved here are recent diagnostic procedures: the study of the “patient’s” family history, the study of the “density” and structure of her breast tissues as determined by mammogram patterns, and the detection of possibly premalignant cellular changes. In this preventative operation, the surgeon leaves the nipple and the skin of the breasts, and restores their bulk with implants of plastic or silicone.

Even when resorted to, prophylactic mastectomies are not foolproof, for a few women have still developed cancer in the area of the nipple. What Jane and I are very curious about, however, is how many “statistically vulnerable” women submitted to operations they didn’t need — for surely a significant number of them wouldn’t have developed cancer in the first place. The percentage is unknowable, of course. If it could be shown that most of the “high risk” women would get cancer, there wouldn’t be arguments about whether such mastectomies are of general value. As things are, though, because of the controversy women once again end up confused as to who is right and what to do. Large scale studies, including one by the National Cancer Institute, are planned to explore the whole question of prophylactic mastectomies.

Apropos of that final item, Jane and I refer the reader to the entire last session. For in it Seth not only discussed the body’s natural defenses and how it “immunizes itself,” but also examined our negative cultural beliefs about the body and disease. We think his material is so good that it deserves more than one reading.