“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Yoga and psy-time helped reduce the symptoms temporarily, but by last week, the stiffness was so bad that my entire shoulder was grinding like jammed sandpaper. I even found myself yelling at the baby, which made me feel awful. Then, on April 25, 1970, I had the following dream:

I came into Rob and Jane’s apartment and walked into a Seth session. I sat next to Rob, who was transcribing notes, as usual. Seth (as Jane) turned toward me at once. His voice was almost angry, but not without compassion. ‘Now then, I will tell you what to do,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be communicating with the part of you that uses words.’

When I awakened, my shoulder, arm and hand were completely free and loose. The lumps — called calcium lumps by my doctor — were still there under the skin, but I could move my shoulder with no difficulty for the first time in months. I could reach into my jean pockets also. I’d had some trouble with my complexion and this cleared up, along with a three-week bout of cramps.

Even a quick and automatic rejection or withdrawal from such a stimulus is, in itself, a way by which consciousness knows itself. The ego may attempt to escape such experiences, but the basic nature of action itself is the knowing of itself in all aspects. In a very deep manner, action does not differentiate between enjoyable and painful actions.

These differentiations come later, on another level of development. But because personality is composed of action, it contains within it all action’s characteristics.

But beneath the sophisticated gestalt are the simpler foundations of its being and, indeed, the very acceptance of all stimuli without which identity would be impossible. Without this acquiescence, the physical structure would never maintain itself, for the atoms and molecules within it constantly accept painful stimuli and suffer even their own destruction. They are aware of their own separateness within action and of their reality within it.

(But can an illness ever serve a good purpose? Yes, according to Seth:)

These must be understood not as something apart from the personality, but as a part of the changing personality. Often, they point out the existence of inner problems. Often, they serve temporary functions, leading the personality from other more severe areas of difficulty. I am not saying here that illness is good. I am saying that it is a part of the action of which any personality is composed, and, therefore, it is purposeful and cannot be considered as an alien force that attacks the individual from without.

In this particular session, Seth is describing illness as a part of action, but, as he makes clear, this is not meant to imply any negation of psychological or psychic values. The nature of action, however, is important, for Seth states,

If illness were thrust upon action or upon the personality from the outside, then the individual would be at the mercy of outside agencies, but it is not. Personality is affected by outside agencies, but in a most basic manner, it chooses those actions which it will accept.

Let’s consider Sue’s symptoms, caused by explosive and repressed aggression, in relation to Seth’s statements. Sue had been taught as a child to repress emotions, but the time had come when expression was imperative. She wanted to strike out but didn’t feel that she should, and the denied actions then inhibited the function of the right arm that would ordinarily do the striking. According to Seth, even the calcium deposits were accumulations of repressed energy stored up in the body.

In her dream, Sue was given information that told her how to release and use this energy creatively. While she remembered the dream clearly and saw its instant results, the information was not given to the conscious self (not even in the dream drama) but to other layers more intimately concerned with body-mind mechanisms. Complete mobility of the arm and shoulder resulted, but there was still some soreness from the calcium deposits that remained.

‘Every day. It should only take six days, but the condition must be understood more clearly. Sixty days.’

After six days of the treatment, all soreness disappeared, as did the calcium lumps. Since then, Sue was bothered by the shoulder during a few stressful periods, but she learned that a simple reading of the original Seth dream immediately returned the shoulder to normal once again. These experiences were highly valuable and produced undeniable physical results which last as long as Sue allows for normal release and expression of emotional energy.

Many such intuitions appear when the personality is dissociated or in a dream state. … The effect of any thought is quite precise and definite and set into motion because of the nature of its own electromagnetic identity. The physical body operates within certain electromagnetic patterns and is adversely affected by others. These effects change the actual molecular structure of the cells, for better or worse, and because of the laws of attraction, habitual patterns will operate. A destructive thought, then, is dangerous not only to the present state of the organism but is also dangerous in terms of the ‘future.’

Such inner therapeutics may occur at various other levels of consciousness, where they may be sparked by exterior stimuli of an aesthetic or pleasing nature. Other exterior conditions also have an effect. To involve oneself in large groups, for example, is often beneficial not simply to take attention away from the self for a change, but because of the larger range of electromagnetic ranges readily available.

I lay there, aware of a growing disquiet. Suddenly I realized that I was hearing voices, but they seemed to come from inside my head. They grew steadily louder and louder. I was certain that I was still awake. The voices rose. I felt as if a radio was turned on full volume in my head, but with stations scrambled — for I could make no sense out of what was said. Instead, I seemed to hear fragments of conversations. Really frightened, I shook my head and looked about the room.

Everything was normal. The morning was still dark and dismal, the gray light of outdoors visible through the blinds. But the voices were definitely booming now. Desperately I tried to find their source. Then I realized that a transistor radio was blaring from the bedside table. I turned it off. It didn’t occur to me that in reality, we had no such radio in the house. To my complete bewilderment, the voice continued. Then I “remembered” that there was another radio in Rob’s studio. Surely the voices were coming from there! I leaped out of bed and rushed to the studio. There was the radio. Quickly I reached to turn it off and received a bad electric shock. Not only that, but the voices had actually doubled in volume.

Here I stopped, dead still. The storm had come. It was pouring outside. Everything inside was strangely silent. The voices suddenly ceased. The whole room seemed to be in a state of waiting — but for what? Completely puzzled, I looked around, trying to get my bearings. And it took some doing. There was no denying the fact that a door had replaced our middle bay window. Curious, I approached and finally threw it open.

I looked up, really confused this time. He definitely was not our present newspaper boy, but the one who had delivered papers to us in another town, several years earlier. He couldn’t possibly be the same age and delivering papers in Elmira! Besides, we got only the evening paper, and it was still morning.

Though it was still raining when I got up, I felt great. All I remembered at first was the second part of the experience, and only when this was written down did I recall the frightening earlier episode. I felt so vibrantly alive that there was no doubt in my mind of the “dream’s” therapeutic nature. But how could the first, unpleasant portion be therapeutic? What did it mean? As you’ll see, Seth explained this in the next session and used the opportunity to explain more about health and dreams.

I am happy to see that Ruburt tried out the material on therapeutic dreams. The basic action of the first dream involved his reception of several voices. Though he does not remember this, they spoke words of encouragement. They presented excellent evidence of his own abilities, for initially they were crystal-clear and without distortion. There were four in all — all male. They belonged to personalities no longer within the physical system, but who were closely allied with Ruburt in past lives. The fourth voice was mine. This was an attempt to build Ruburt’s confidence — to show how clear reception can be if his abilities are fully utilized.

The above portions therefore were actually not dreams but experiences happening while he was dissociated. They shocked him; hence, the shock later on when he turned this into a dream. When he heard the voices, instead of becoming confident, he fell into a dream state. He did not want to accept the responsibility that he felt his abilities put upon him, and so in the dream, he looked for an outside source for the voices and dreamed the radio sequences. In the dream, however, the voices continue [after he switched the radio off] because he knows he is picking them up from a channel that is not physical.

In the dream, then, he goes into his own room. He has consciously forgotten this part, covering it with a vague reference to an electrical storm. In the dream itself, however, he discovers that his ability is as much a part of him as breath and can’t be turned off and on at will. There is an electric storm. He stands in the middle of the room, touched by vibrating currents. Though he is afraid, he realizes that he is part of the storm — it is not destructive but creative and, most of all, a simple elemental part of reality. This second realization makes the second dream possible, with its therapeutic elements.

The second dream is one of expansion. The most meaningful level was one in which the many rooms and apartments represented psychic areas of development, endless possibilities that continually open, but possibilities that were based on previous life experiences. There are many aspects of reincarnational data in the dream, all reinforcing the healthy elements of Ruburt’s personality.

Seth’s interpretation was continued in the next (200th) session. He said that the green jacket represented a new ability that had been mine in a past life but which I misused, this new ability was now waiting for me to claim. The people were all persons with who I’d had past life connections. This caused the feelings of rediscovery and joy. Seth said,

Dreams can not only eliminate symptoms (as in Sue’s case) or completely alter moods (as in my dream) but they can give us warning of incipient health difficulties — as happened to me several years ago. One night, in the early days of our psychic experience, I dreamed I saw Rob standing by the kitchen sink. He buckled over and fell to the floor. The dream frightened me so much that as I awakened, I caught myself saying, “That dream scares me. I don’t want to remember it.” In other words, I found myself in the act of trying to censor the dream. This alone told me that it must be important, so I forced myself to write it down at once. I didn’t even tell the dream to Rob.

The inner self does know the state of our health. At one time, I had some symptoms for which I was using a combination of healing methods suggestion, self-analysis and dream therapy. I seemed to be improving but wanted an inner check. One night, I requested a dream that would let me know my state of progress.

Upon proper suggestion, the personality then will work out specific problems in the dream state, but if the solution is not clear to the [conscious] ego, this does not necessarily mean that the solution was not found. There will be cases where it is not only unnecessary but undesirable that the ego be familiar with the solution. The suggestions will be followed by the sleeping self in its own fashion. The solutions may not appear to the conscious self in the way it expects. The conscious self may not even recognize it has been given a solution, and yet it may act upon it. …

This is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Much erratic anti-social behavior could be avoided in this way. Crimes could be prevented. The desired but feared actions would not build up to explosive pressure. If I may indulge in a fantasy, theoretically you could imagine a massive experiment in dream therapy, where wars were fought by sleeping, and not waking, nations.

[In practice, however,] there are many considerations to be understood. If aggressiveness is the problem, for example, then the preliminary suggestion should include a statement that in the dream, the aggression will be harmlessly acted out and not directed against a particular individual. The subconscious is quite capable of handling the situation in this manner. This may seem like a double censor, but in all cases it is the aggressiveness itself that is important and not the person or persons against whom the individual may decide to vent his aggressiveness.