“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You live many lives simultaneously. You often think of these as reincarnational existences, one before the other. If you are severely ill and believe that the reasons for your symptoms exist in a past life, that you must “put up with it,” then you will not realize that your point of power is in the present, and you will not believe in the possibility of recovery.

In your terms, birth defects of whatever kind are chosen before this life. This is done for many different reasons (just as people choose to be ill in this life, regardless of the duration involved). That is, a certain psychic framework is set up through which an individual decides “ahead of time” to experience an entire life situation. Some information on this has been given in my other writings.¹

In such a situation, there are fulfillments to be gained from the parents’ standpoints. There are always opportunities of growth and unusual creativity possible under those conditions for all involved. That is why the framework was chosen. The same applies to seeming tragedies such as accidents, or severe illnesses that come at any time.

(Very emphatically at 10:03:) On an individual basis a grave illness, for instance, will represent the adoption of a particular highly intense focus in which a given aspect of usual experience is deliberately cut out or denied; the context of life itself must then be magnified along other lines. In somewhat the same manner, this also applies to those born in extreme poverty or in the most seemingly unfortunate of family situations. The life challenge is inherent within the problem itself and springs from it. Usually, though not always, a peculiar personal achievement results precisely because of the given difficulty (intently).

Many ordinary illnesses also involve the family group to some degree. The predominating beliefs of the sick person will always be paramount, however. The group situation will encompass an acquiescence on the part of other family members.

(Pause.) Many great contrasts of a social nature have the same kind of inner meaning; here whole groups of individuals chose particular life situations in which, for example, poverty and illness predominate, while other areas of the world (or of any given nation) enjoy the highest technological advances, wealth and prosperity. Separately each personality has a private reason for such an affiliation. But on other levels, through the contrasting focuses of poverty and wealth, scientific accomplishments or the lack of them, opposites are brilliantly apparent. Technological progress, followed as a main focus, automatically portrays its benefits and its disadvantages.