“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I would state furthermore that indeed Ruburt did have occasion to be angry at the chiropractor, since with an emotional fear unthinking suggestions such as his, made with only the flimsiest of evidence, can be most harmful and destructive. And in an unwary, emotionally upset personality, particularly if under stress, such a suggestion could cause a harmless and protective nodule to be changed by the strong powers of adverse expectation, or rather expectation poorly used, into the form of what is feared; as a slight but harmless irregularity of heartbeat, with the unthinking suggestion of a doctor, can become through the patient’s fears an actual functional disorder, so could suggestion turn a relatively harmless formation like Ruburt’s into an arthritic condition.

Nevertheless, because the patient is in a condition where he is most susceptible to suggestions, a great responsibility lies upon the shoulders of those who would treat illness. The chiropractor’s suggestion that the irritation was an arthritic one was made positively; that is, without thinking he stated “Oh yes, that is not normal at all, it is an arthritic nodule.” Later, realizing that the suggestion had been a poor one, and moreover one of which he was not certain, he amended the statement, adding that such a formation could also be the result of injury or simple irritation to the joint.

Despite Ruburt’s understanding, his intellectual understanding of his fear of arthritis, he was thrown into an understandable and regrettable emotional state, with which he grappled with at least some success. But you see here what under other circumstances could have been the final straw, so to speak, the word of authority that would say “Your fears are justified.” In such an instance and under certain conditions such an individual would have his deepest dreads, therefore, fastened upon him.

A disease of course is not brought about at any particular point in time, but is latent, and merely becomes perceivable enough to cause danger at what approximates a particular point in time. Psychologically there exists within a given individual the latent leaning toward a multitudinous variety of so-called diseases, these tendencies being picked up through early conditioning and environment.