“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Suggestion is therefore one of the characteristics of action. The term suggestion is a poor one. As it operates within your system, and within the human personality, the word expectation is a much better term. Nevertheless, expectation is only one phase, for the same kind of inner directive activity is pertinent within all forms of action.

What you call suggestion then is but a small aspect of a larger directive characteristic that is ever part of action itself. It is indeed in the nature of an impetus, an inner impetus that belongs to action, and is not some force separated from action, and acting upon it. This impetus is a natural and spontaneous movement that springs from within action itself. It can even be termed the direction, or the various spontaneous directions, in which action itself moves.

These directions are not forced upon action by any laws. They are merely the resultant patterns with which energy expresses itself. You are only familiar as a rule with this impetus, or these directions, in rather shallow manners, for the ego prefers not to perceive them. These motions are merely the flow which action takes. What you term negative suggestions are usually impeding actions, or directions of action which impede the main directive inner flow. They operate then in much the same manner as crosscurrents, setting up blockages, and impeding main energies by dividing them in several diverse directions.

It is important that it be understood that suggestion, as you know it, is but the manifestation of inner flows and inner directions. Without the inward flows and directions, it goes without saying that action would indeed involve itself in chaotic disorders, without constructive patterns or materializations. It would instead entangle itself within the power of its own energy, and be unable to form any long-lasting patterns or frameworks within which fulfillments and fairly permanent constructions could be formed.

The personality itself, as you know, is a gestalt of action, and as such it is necessary that the flow of action within it follow the overall directives of the entity and the inner self. When for example the ego is allowed to apply too tightly and too rigorously its inhibitory functions, then this freedom of action within the personality is seriously divided and impeded.

The inner self here, through intuitive insight, can usually recognize whether an action is an impeding or a constructive one for the purposes of the personality involved. Even an action which appears blatantly as an impeding action, may temporarily serve as a constructive one. It may then turn into an impeding action.

We are dealing here, again, merely with the various aspects of action. As a personality itself is an action gestalt, within the inner self there is a capsule comprehension of the purposes and intents of the whole personality. These are indeed within the very structure, both psychic and physical, of the personality itself. The ego, on its own as a separate unit, does not have such data, although since it is after all a portion of the whole self, it does have such information available. But when it acts as a unit it does not use such information.

This is the ideal circumstance, for when this is the case then the ego listens to the inner self, and then directs its energy outward in a way that is beneficial for the whole gestalt framework. What you call negative suggestions are often judgments of the ego, for suggestion works from the ego to the subconscious, as well as it works the other way around. Such suggestions made by the ego can indeed be caught, and positive or constructive suggestions given to replace them.

However, automatic responses can also be set up, so that only constructive suggestions are reacted to. In such instances however, the inner self should be allowed to make the judgment ultimately, as to which suggestions are constructive and which are not.