“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Dictation: Any good demonstration of hypnosis will clearly show that the point of power is in the present, and that beliefs dictate your experience.

With the distortions present in organized procedures, however, and the misunderstandings of the practitioners, the phenomenon seems to show a different face indeed. The subject agrees to accept the beliefs of the hypnotist. Since telepathy exists (as described in Chapter Three), the subject will react not only to verbal commands but to the unspoken beliefs of the practitioner, thereby “proving,” of course, the hypnotist’s theory of what his profession is.

Hypnosis clearly shows in concentrated form the way in which your beliefs affect your behavior in normal life. The various methods simply focus all of your concentration upon a specific area, shutting out any distractions.

(Long pause at 9:54.) Your beliefs act like a hypnotist, then. As long as the particular directions are given, so will your “automatic” experience conform. The one suggestion that can break through is this: “I create my reality, and the present is my point of power.” If you do not like the effects of a belief you must alter it, for no manipulation of the exterior conditions themselves will release you. If you truly understand your power of action and decision in the present, then you will not be hypnotized by past events.

Think of the present as a pool of experience drawn from many sources, fed, in your terms, by tributaries from both the past and the future. There are an infinite number of such tributaries (probabilities), and through your beliefs you choose from these, adjusting their currents. For example: If you constantly focus on the belief that your early background was damaging and negative, then only such experiences will flow into your present life from the past. It does no good to say, “But my life was traumatic,” therefore reinforcing the belief. You must in one way or another modify that conviction, or preferably change it entirely — or you will never escape from its effects. This does not mean “lying” to yourself; but if it seems to you that your background held no joys, accomplishments or pleasures, then you are lying to yourself now. You have concentrated upon the negative to such a degree that anything else seems invisible. (See the 644th session in Chapter Eleven.) From the present you have hypnotized yourself, viewing the past not as it was to your experience, but as it appears now in the light of your current beliefs.

You have reconstructed it. So when I tell you to restructure your past, I am not telling you to do something that you have not already done. Hypnosis, again, is merely a state of concentrated attention, in which you focus upon beliefs. Popular demonstrations lead the public to believe that the subject must fall asleep or be completely relaxed, yet this is not the case. The one prerequisite is an intense concentration upon specific incoming data to the exclusion of everything else. Therefore the orders given are clear-cut, to the point. No conflicting information is received, no cross messages.

Many beliefs were originally accepted as a result of such a situation, without any formal induction, but when the circumstances were right. A period of panic induces immediate accelerated concentration. All the forces of energy are mobilized at once, while little relaxation is usually involved.

(Pause.) On the other hand, such beliefs can be accepted when it appears that the conscious mind is asleep, or dulled as in periods of shock, or during operations. The focus of attention is narrowed then, and intensified. One of the troubles is that too specific distinctions are made between the conscious and unconscious minds. They interlap. Hypnosis, used properly without the mumbo jumbo usually assigned to it, is an excellent method of inserting new beliefs and getting rid of old ones. This is only true, however, if you realize the power of your conscious mind in that moment, and understand the ability of your consciousness to mobilize unconscious reactions.

First of all, the unconscious is not a sponge, indiscriminately accepting material regardless of the considerations of your conscious self. All beliefs or suggestions are first sifted through your conscious mind, and only those that you accept are then permitted their penetration into the other areas of the self.

No negative beliefs were thrust upon you, therefore, despite your will. Period. None can be inflicted upon you that you do not consciously accept. In formal hypnosis, the hypnotist and the subject play a game. If the hypnotist orders the subject to forget what happened, that individual will pretend to do so. In that context both hold the belief in the resulting forgetfulness, and it is the power of belief that is being demonstrated. But instead this is taken as an indication that the conscious mind is helpless under such conditions, generally speaking, and this is not the case.

Quite without any inductions, you have “hypnotized” yourself into all the beliefs that you have. This simply means that you have consciously accepted them, focused upon them, excluded data to the contrary, narrowed your interests to those specific points, and accordingly activated the unconscious mechanisms that then materialize those convictions through physical experience.

(Pause.) Formal hypnosis merely brings about an accelerated version of what goes on all the time. It is a perfect example of the instantaneous results possible ideally — but not usually seen practically — as present beliefs negate past ones.

(Pause at 10:42.) We are going to deal with practical methods that will allow you to alter beliefs and change your experience. Later in the book we’ll show how your individual beliefs attract you to joys or disasters. We will also discuss the ways in which mass beliefs will bring many of you together both in great periods of celebration, or as victims or survivors of disasters that seem to exist apart from yourselves.

Your reality is the result of a hallucination, if by this you mean that it is only the picture shown by your senses. Physically, of course, your existence is perceived through the senses. In that context corporeal life is an entranced one, with the focus of attention largely concentrated through the senses’ belief in the reality of their sensations. Yet that experience is the image that reality takes for you now, and so in other terms earthly life is one version of reality — not reality in its entirety, but a part of it. It is in itself an avenue through which you perceive what reality is. In order to explore that experience, you direct your attention to it and use all of your other (nonphysical) abilities as corollaries, adjuncts, additions. You hypnotize your very nerves, and the cells within your body, for they will react as you expect them to react, and the beliefs of your conscious mind are followed in degree by all portions of the self down to the smallest atom and molecule. The large events of your life, your interactions with others, including the habitual workings of the most minute physical events within your body — all of this follows your conscious belief.

You may have accepted some of these ideas from your parents. Their effects may have surrounded you, or you may have switched beliefs in one particular area of your life; but each can be changed if you utilize the power of action in the present. I am not saying that every one of you must or should be healthy, wealthy and wise. I am only addressing those here now who have effects in their lives with which they are dissatisfied. In one manner of speaking, then, the suggestions you give yourselves constantly operate overall as beliefs that are reflected in your experience.

Some of you are simply mentally lazy. You do not consciously examine the data that you receive. Many who make a practice of “denying” negative suggestions from others, asserting positive affirmations instead, actually do so because they are so fully convinced that the power of negative beliefs is stronger than that of beneficial ones.

For five or ten minutes a day at the most, then, use natural hypnosis as a method of accepting desired new beliefs. During that period concentrate your attention as vividly as possible upon one simple statement. Repeat it over and over while focusing upon it for this time. Try to feel the statement in whatever way is possible — that is, do not allow distractions, but if your mind insists upon running about then channel its images in line with your declaration.

(11:40.) During the period, however, do remember that you are using the present as a moment of power to insert new beliefs, and that these will indeed be materialized. When the exercise is finished do not dwell upon it. Put it from your mind. You will have utilized natural hypnosis in a concentrated form.