“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Let us give a simple example, using a positive belief instilled in childhood. An individual is told that he is comely, well-proportioned, and possesses a likeable personality. The idea takes hold. The person acts in line with this belief in all ways; but also a variety of subsidiary beliefs grow up about the main one.

The belief in personal worth draws about it the belief in the personal value of others, for they show their best faces to our fortunate friend. His life constantly reinforces this concept, and while he is peripherally aware that some people are “nicer” than others, his main intimate experience allows him to see the best in others and in himself. This becomes one of the strong frameworks through which he views existence.

Data or stimuli that does not agree is a side issue, not personally applicable but present, he realizes, as fact for others. He will not need to prove himself, so it will be easier for him to accept contemporaries with fairness.

There may be areas in which he realizes he is not adequate, yet because of his belief in his basic worth he will be able to accept these lacks as a part of himself without feeling threatened by them. He will be able to try to improve his condition without knocking himself down at the same time.

Now: In those terms he may or may not be as attractive, feature by feature, as some other individuals who believe, in fact, that they are unattractive. The belief in his own comeliness is so important that others will react to him in the same fashion. An individual can have great native beauty, for example, but this beauty is not apparent to others, or to the individual. The person does not believe that he or she possesses it, and mars the actual physical features so that the comeliness becomes literally invisible.

(9:38.) This inner communication acts like the constant repetition of a hypnotist. In this case, however, you are your own hypnotist. Few people will have simply one main area of concentration. Usually several are involved, but these represent the ways in which you are using your energy. The individual who takes it for granted that he is worthwhile does not need to belabor the point. His ensuing experiences come naturally to him. In many areas of your own life, those in which you are satisfied, you need make no effort. Your conscious thoughts and concentrations bring about results with which you are pleased. It is only in those compartments of your life that confound you that you suddenly begin to wonder what is happening — but here also, natural hypnosis is at work just as easily and naturally, and your conscious ideas are automatically coming to physical fruition. So it is in these areas that you must realize that you are the hypnotist.

In each person’s experience, there are areas with which he or she is pleased. When you find yourself dissatisfied, however, question the orders you are giving in that particular arena of experience. The results do not seem, now, to follow your conscious desires. But you will find that they do follow your conscious beliefs, which may be quite different.

In formal hypnosis you make an agreement with the hypnotist: For a while you will accept his ideas about reality instead of your own. If he tells you that there is a pink elephant in front of you, then you will see it and believe it is there, and act according to the suggestions given. If you are a good subject and your hypnotist a good practitioner, then blisters can arise on your skin if he tells you that you have been burned.

This intensity of conscious concentration cuts down barriers and allows the messages to go directly to the unconscious, where they are acted upon. The hypnotist, however, is important in that he acts as a direct representative of authority.

In your terms, beliefs are accepted initially from the parents — this, as mentioned earlier, having to do with mammalian experience. (See the 619th session in Chapter Four.) The hypnotist then acts as a parent substitute. In cases of therapy, an individual is already frightened, and because of the beliefs in your civilization he looks not to himself but to an authority figure for help.

(10:10.) Even in primitive societies, witch doctors and other natural therapists have understood that the point of power is in the present, and they have utilized natural hypnosis as a method of helping other individuals to concentrate their own energy. All of the gestures, dances, and other procedures are shock treatments, startling the subject out of habitual reactions so that he or she is forced to focus upon the present moment. The resulting disorientation simply shakes current beliefs and dislodges set frameworks. The hypnotist, or witch doctor, or therapist, then immediately inserts the beliefs he thinks the subject needs.

(Pause.) A modern Western physician — granted, with the greatest discomfiture — will inform his patient that he is about to die, impressing upon him that his situation is hopeless, and yet will react with scorn and loathing when he reads that a voodoo practitioner has put a curse upon some innocent victim.

(10:34. Jane’s state of dissociation had been excellent, her delivery fast and steady. “Boy, was he going strong,” she said, meaning Seth. “He’s going to get into some more real good material after this, too.” In connection with Seth’s delivery since 10:10, we’d like the reader to refer to these sessions: the 616th in Chapter Two; the 624th in Chapter Five; and the 654th in Chapter Fourteen. Resume at 10:48.)

To a medical man all of this will seem like the sheerest heresy, because disease will always be seen as an objective thing in the body, to be objectively treated and removed. But a man who feels “that he has no heart” will not be saved by the most sophisticated heart transplant, unless first that belief is changed.

In other areas, an individual who thinks that he is poor will lose or misuse, or badly invest, any amount of money, whether he works hard for it or is given it. A person who has hypnotized himself into a state of loneliness will be desolate although surrounded by a hundred friends and admirers.