“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We are also helped, however, by several characteristics of the personality, in that it is ever-changing, and its flexibility will be of benefit. We merely want to change the direction in which some of its energy moves. It must be seen by the personality that an impeding action is a hardship on the whole structure and that this particular part of the self is not basic to the original personality. The longer the impeding action is accepted, the more serious the problem.

The whole focus of a personality can change from constructive areas to a concentration of main energies in the area of the illness. Now in such a case, often the illness represents a new unifying system. If the old unifying system of personality has broken down, the illness, serving as a makeshift, temporary emergency measure may hold the integrity of the personality intact until a new constructive, unifying principle replaces the original.

Unifying principles are groups of actions about which the whole personality forms itself at any given time. These may change and do change in a relatively smooth fashion when action is allowed to flow unimpeded. When action is not allowed to follow the patterns or channels for its expression that have been evolved by the personality, then blockages of energy occur.

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.

Illness must be treated primarily by changing the basic mental habits. Unless this is done, the trouble will erupt again and again in different guises. The system has the ability to heal itself, however, and every opportunity should be given to allow it to do so.

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.’

A destructive attitude of mind has been changed overnight in the dream state to a constructive situation in many instances, and the whole electromagnetic balance has been changed. In such a case, negative ions form an electrical framework in which healing is possible. Such healing dreams come most often when the self feels a sense of desperation and automatically opens up channels to deeper layers of personality.

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.

Seth also mentioned that dreams could completely reverse moods of depression and that such mood-changing dreams could also be manufactured through the use of suggestion. One rainy March morning, I decided to follow his instructions. I realized I’d been blue and depressed for a week or more — upset because I had not heard from a publisher and also because I was encountering difficulties at the art gallery.

I won’t go into the out-of-body implications of that experience until later in this book; here, I’d like to emphasize, instead, the mood-changing elements of the “dream” and what it meant to me. In the next session, Seth explained it and showed how reincarnational background, present problems and personal symbolism were all used in the dream drama. Portions of the experience were dreams. Others were valid subjective events of a different kind, and the entire production was in response to my suggestions for a mood-changing dream.

As the personality is changed by any action, so it is changed by its own dreams. As it is molded by the exterior environment, so it is molded by the dreams that it creates and which help form its interior world. To the whole self, there is little differentiation made between exterior or interior actions. The ego makes such distinctions. The core of the personality does not. … As an individual changes his physical situation through reacting to it, so he changes his interior or psychic situation in the same way. …