“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) Love, as it is often experienced, allows an individual to take his sense of self-worth from another for a time, and to at least momentarily let the other’s belief in his goodness supersede his own beliefs in lack of worth. Again, I make a distinction between this and a greater love in which two individuals, knowing their own worth, are able to give and to receive.

Again, you make your own reality. When you view the world, social groups, political groups, your friends, your private experience — these are all attracted into your realm of activity by your beliefs. Natural hypnosis, as explained in the last chapter, leads you to seek out those situations that will confirm your beliefs, and to avoid those that threaten them.

Now the other individual has no power that Dineen does not possess. (Pause.) Dineen heartily believes in good and evil; so, being convinced that she was at the mercy of demoniacal forces, she began to pray. As Ruburt pointed out, however, the prayers themselves were merely a weak surrender to the idea that evil is so powerful. They were not based on any real belief in the power of good, but only upon a superstitious hope that if bad forces exist, good ones must also.

She felt that certain rituals or foods warded off this evil hypnotic suggestion. Yet many of you take vitamins, convinced that they will save you from various diseases. Within Dineen’s belief system she was acting quite rationally — and in your belief system you are doing the same.

(10:29.) If you believe that you come down with a cold every time you are in a draft, you are using natural hypnosis. If you think that you must come and go at everyone else’s beck and call, then you are like Dineen, who believes that she must do what this “hypnotist” tells her to do. In her case Dineen gave up the responsibility for action and initiative, yet because one must act the reasons were assigned to another. Ruburt also pointed this out. Dineen asked for advice from me and again Ruburt said, quite correctly, “You must learn to stop depending upon others, to use your own common sense. You must stop trying to use one symbol against another, and look at your own life and your beliefs.”

Ruburt also suggested a counselor, but until Dineen is ready to exchange the beliefs she has for others that will allow her to fulfill her own abilities, she will still be in difficulty.

Dineen is in excellent physical health, however, and is an extremely attractive woman. She did not choose a situation in which either her health or beauty would be imperiled. She also stayed clear of any sexual involvement outside of marriage. She chose the psychic arena because she felt it to be out of the ordinary to begin with, and invested with all kinds of mystery. Any difficulties encountered there would automatically have a kind of glamour and distinction. The more she was reassured by others with the same beliefs, the deeper her involvement grew.

(11:09.) The habit of not facing problems, which indeed are challenges, can be addictive. A feeling of powerlessness in one field can be transferred to others. When this happens through natural hypnosis, then even the psychic territory of power can be assailed. Here the individual becomes thoroughly aroused, threatened, and realizes for the first time perhaps the nature of belief and his or her predicament. Here you have life and death struggles in creative terms. Some miraculous cures or change-abouts in midlife occur as a result.

As I have said before, your thoughts are reality. They directly affect your body. It seems that you are highly civilized people because you put your ill into hospitals where they can be cared for. What you do, of course, is to isolate a group of people who are filled with negative beliefs about illness. The contagion of beliefs spreads. Patients are obviously in hospitals because they are ill. The sick and their doctors both work on that principle.

Furthermore, the natural elements of sun, air, and earth are refused him. The stability of familiarity is withdrawn. Now with your set of beliefs you are indeed more or less obligated to go to hospitals in severe conditions. I am not saying here that many doctors and nurses do not try their best to promote healing, and certainly healings occur — but they do so despite the system and not because of it. In many cases the belief of a doctor in a person who is ill revives him and rearouses his own belief in himself. The patient’s confidence in the doctor will then reinforce the entire medical procedure, and he may then be filled with faith in his recovery. But as there are natural healing processes within animals, so there are in your race.

(11:32.) Illnesses usually represent unfaced problems, in your terms, and these dilemmas embody challenges meant to lead you to greater achievement and fulfillment. Because body and mind operate so well together, one will attempt to cure the other, and will often succeed if left alone. The organism has its own beliefs in health that are unconscious on your part.

Certain kinds of medications can indeed help, but those given in your hospitals simply drug the consciousness out of its own understanding, and inhibit the body mechanisms that make for an easy transition. In your prisons you do the same thing, of course, isolating groups of people with like beliefs — denying them all natural stimuli so that a greater contagion of similar beliefs ensues. You separate such people from the normal contact of their loved ones, and all usual conditions for growth or development.