“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Here posthypnotic suggestion operates as well as constant daily “conditioning.” Now: For an example, take a woman who feels compelled to wash her hands twenty or thirty times a day. It is easy to recognize the fact that such repeated behavior is compulsive. But when a man’s ulcers bother him every time he eats certain foods, it is more difficult to perceive the fact that this behavior is also compulsive and repetitive.

Natural hypnosis and conscious beliefs give their proper instructions to the unconscious, which then dutifully affects the body mechanism so that it responds in a manner harmonious with the beliefs. So you condition your body to react in certain fashions. Dealing with this is not a simple problem, of course, for the original suggestion of dis-ease was in itself given because of another belief. Using formal hypnosis, and in the West, you may regress and discover where the suggestion was first given you. If you and your hypnotist believe in reincarnation, the source may be discovered in another life.

All of this can be avoided through the realization that your point of power is in the present, as stated earlier (in the 657th session in Chapter Fifteen). Not only do you operate within your own personal beliefs, of course, but within a mass system to which you subscribe to one degree or another. Within that organization medical insurance becomes a necessity for most of you, so I am not suggesting that you drop it. Nevertheless, let us look more closely at the situation.

Even more disadvantageous are the suggestions given, with the best of purposes in mind, concerning specific health areas dealing with prevention. There are two in particular that I would like to mention here.

One is the cancer drive literature, and television “public service” announcements, in which the seven danger signals of cancer are given. Unfortunately, again, within the framework of your beliefs this also becomes almost a necessity for many — especially for those who, because of previous experience of one kind or another with the disease, are almost irrational in their fear of it. The literature and announcements act as strong negative suggestions, following the nature of natural hypnosis — as a conditioning process, you see, where you are looking for specific symptoms, and examining your body under the impetus of fear.

They believe that diseases are the result of exterior conditions. Quite simply, their policy can be read: “You are what you eat.” Some in this group also subscribe to philosophical ideas that somewhat moderate those concepts, recognizing the importance of the mind. Often though, some strong suggestions of a very negative character are given, so that all foods except certain accepted ones are seen as bad for the body, and the cause of diseases. People become afraid of the food they eat, and the field of eating then becomes the arena.

If you are feeling poorly and happen to read an advertisement for vitamins, or a book about them, and are impressed, you will indeed benefit — at least for a while. Your belief will make them work for you, but if your insistence upon poor health persists, then the counter suggestion represented by the vitamins will not be effective for long.

(10:53.) The same applies to the “public service announcements” dealing with tobacco and drugs alike. The suggestion that smoking will give you cancer is far more dangerous than the physical effects of smoking, and can give cancer to who people who might otherwise not be so affected (very intently).

It becomes a counter suggestion, yet it is all a part of the same hypnotic process, based upon his belief in his original illness. While it gives temporary results, the fact that he needs it reinforces his dependency upon it. If his belief in his poor health continues unchecked, the medicine will no longer serve as an adequate counter measure. It would seem only good sense to refrain from the foods that bring on the condition. Yet each time this is done, the individual acquiesces more and more to the hypnotic suggestion.

In all such situations, it is highly important that you do not concentrate your main attention in that area of experience with which you are least satisfied. This acts as a deepening of hypnotic suggestion. Just reminding yourself of your other accomplishments will by itself operate in a constructive fashion, even if nothing else is done. Such focus of attention on positive aspects automatically pulls your energy away from the problem. It also builds up your own sense of worth and power as you are reminded of adequate performance at other levels of experience.

Until you change your belief, you will continue to utilize your food in the same fashion — and to overeat. Momentary gains will not last. Your entire behavior pattern operates according to the strong hypnotic suggestions given, and then of course your appearance and experience always reinforce your belief.

Ideas of worth are involved here also, and the point of power as mentioned earlier. (See the 657th session in Chapter Fifteen.) In any area, great clues can be received simply through paying more attention to the conscious thoughts that you have during the day, for each of them serve as minute suggestions, modifying your behavioral patterns and affecting bodily mechanisms.

(“Yet each individual must eventually realize that you can’t give up power in one area without … ultimately threatening the inner core or psychic territory of power to some extent…. A belief in powerlessness in any area sets up its possibility in others — it operates as negative suggestion.”

(“Diets do serve momentarily as outer signs that you are in control, and can seize the initiative; and as such they can be important. Usually, however, a pattern of unsuccessful diets occurs, operating then as a series of negative suggestions. The resistance is the result of conflicts in beliefs. You think you are overweight and accept this as reality. Steps to lose weight do not make sense in the face of that belief. They are ‘unrealistic’ or even impossible.