“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

To be healthy you must believe in health. A good physician is a changer of beliefs. He will replace an idea of illness with one of health. Whatever methods or drugs he uses will not be effective unless this change of belief takes place.

The old medicine men often dealt far more directly with the patient himself, and understood the nature of beliefs and the prime importance of suggestion. Many of their techniques were adopted for their psychological shock value, in which the patient was quite effectively “brainwashed” out of the disease he believed that he had.

The present medical profession is sadly hampered because of its own beliefs. Often it operates as a framework in which poor health and disease are not only accepted as normal, but the concepts behind them strengthened. Here you have again, as in psychoanalysis, a hide-and-seek arrangement in which both doctor and patient take part. (See the 616th session in Chapter Two.)

Both believe they need the other, of course. Behind this is the psychic pattern of beliefs in which the patient often assigns to the doctor the powers of knowledge and wisdom that his beliefs have taught him he does not have. Knowing otherwise, the patient still wants to consider the doctor omnipotent.

Upon the patient a doctor often assigns and projects his own feelings of helplessness against which he combats. The interactions continue with the patient trying to please the doctor, and at best merely changing from one group of symptoms to another. Far too often the doctor shares the patient’s unshakable belief in poor health and disease.

The naming and labelling of “diseases” is a harmful practice that to a large extent denies the innate mobility and ever-changing quality of the psyche as expressed in flesh. You are told that you have “something.” Out of the blue “it” has attacked you, and your most intimate organs, perhaps. You are usually told that your emotions or beliefs or system of values have nothing to do with the unfortunate circumstances that beset you.

(10:08.) The patient, therefore, often feels relatively powerless and at the mercy of any stray virus that might come along. The facts are that you choose even the kind of illness that you have according to the nature of your beliefs. You are immune from ill health as long as you believe that you are.

These are quite practical statements. Your body has an overall body consciousness filled with energy and vitality. It automatically rights any imbalances, but your conscious beliefs also affect this body consciousness. Your muscles believe what you tell them about themselves. So does every other portion of your physical body.

While you believe that only doctors can cure you, you had better go to them, because in the framework of your beliefs they are the only people who can help you. But the framework itself is limiting; and again, while you may be cured of one difficulty, you will only replace it with another as long as your beliefs cause you to have physical problems.

Now the same applies to what is frequently called spiritual healing. If through the concentrated use of psychic energy your body is cured by such a healer, you will also simply trade those symptoms for others unless you change your initial beliefs. Now sometimes a healer or a doctor, with his effectiveness in healing a condition, will show you by inference that the healing energy was always within yourself, and this realization may be enough to allow you to change your beliefs about health entirely.

In such a case you will realize that your previous ill health was caused by your belief. If you have any physical problems, concentrate instead upon the healthy portions of your body and the unimpeded functions that you have. In the healthy areas, your beliefs are working for you.

The unharmonious sounds have become a part of that portion of the body as a result of the inner sound of your own thought-beliefs. That is why it is vital that you not reinforce these inner sounds through repeating the same negative suggestions to yourself. Verbal suggestions are translated into inner sound. This passes through your body in somewhat the same way that some kinds of light do.

Mental images therefore are extremely powerful, combining inner sound and its effects with a clear mental picture which will seek physical form. Your imagination adds motivating and propelling power to such images, and so you will find that many of your beliefs are entertained by you in an inner visual manner. They will have mental pictures connected with them.

One such image may represent one particular belief or it may stand for several. As you make lists of your beliefs you will find some of these pictures coming into your mind. Look at them as you would a painting you have created. If you do not like what you see then quite consciously change the picture in your mind.

These images are interior, yet because they are so a part of your beliefs you will see them exteriorized also in your experience.

We are dealing to make a point with a belief already made physical. But if you continued such concentration the toe either would not heal or would develop into a worse condition. Behind all this, of course, would be the belief that caused the difficulty; but once you have brought about a group of symptoms you must be very careful that you do not begin to view your field of reality from that position. When you do, you add both inner and outer images that reinforce the condition.

There is light then that you do not see with physical eyes, as there is sound that you do not hear with your ears. These combine to mentally form the physical image that you know, so you must work from the inside out. Your beliefs are your palette, using the analogy of a painting again.

The sound of your inner thoughts is the medium that you actually use. This is far more than an analogy, however, for in simple terms it explains quite clearly the way in which your beliefs form your reality. In quiet moments the word “O-O-O-O-O-M-M-M-M-M,” said slowly, mentally or aloud, will be of benefit in toning up your general physical condition. The sounds contain within them a built-in impetus toward energy and well-being, as I will explain shortly.