“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The viruses and infections were, of course, present. They always are. They are themselves fragments, struggling small fragments, without intention of harm. You have general immunity, believe it or not, to all such viruses. Ideally, you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted. To some degree, household pets are dependent upon your psychic strength. They have their own, it is true, but, unknowingly, you reinforce their energy and health.

When your own personalities are more or less in balance, you have no trouble at all looking out for these creatures and actually reinforcing their existence with residues of your creative and sympathetic powers. In times of psychological stress — or in periods of crises — quite unwittingly you often withhold this strong reinforcement. …

In the cats’ deaths, both inherited the peculiar illness, which was a virus, that killed them. In the case of the first cat, you were able to reinforce its strength and maintain its health for some time. Then you needed your energies for yourselves. The second cat barely enjoyed such reinforcement at all and quickly succumbed. (We’d obtained both kittens from the janitor at the art gallery. Both had the same mother.)

Your dog’s illness was incipient. You could not have maintained his health for many years in any case. I would like to make it clear that animals do have energy to maintain their own health, but this is reinforced as a rule by the vitality of the human beings to whom they may be emotionally attached. The fact is that you were unable to give your dog the added vitality at a time when he needed it most. There is no need to blame yourselves. It was beyond your control at your stage of development then.

I was crushed by this material when Rob read it to me after the session. We were both completely unacquainted with such ideas, yet, intuitively, we accepted them. Ever since, we’ve been very aware of the effect our behavior and moods have on our cats and have observed the same reinforcement or lack of it in other people’s relationship with their animals.