“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The conscious mind had nothing to do with this. He strongly wished for the friend’s presence. The wish became reality. You must understand the rules that apply. For they apply whether or not you understand them, and whether or not the wish is one that you really want fulfilled.

Take for example this subconscious feeling: “I want to be comforted. If I were sick someone would feel sorry for me and comfort me then.” Such a wish is very seldom on a conscious level, but it is often emotionally charged, and it brings forth immediate results because of the charge it carries. Whenever you catch yourselves in moods of self-pity, then you are courting just such results.

The pendulum is an excellent method of discovering your subconscious feelings, and indeed of changing them. As you both suppose, incidentally, the music you played this evening was highly beneficial from several standpoints. (Yma Sumac.) Any connection with past periods of productivity or joy have immediate reference to the present. As negative suggestions play their part, so do positive suggestions, and both in terms of symbols.

These positive symbols can be used quite deliberately. They should be utilized for your own benefit. You do this often without realizing that you do so, but a conscious knowledge will help you.

Give us a moment here… I am searching for a connection for you, concerning the past. A negative response dealing with Dr. Martin. Some, to me, indistinct connection between the strange young woman here with your friends, and Emma Martin. An old unpleasant association. You were uncomfortable, a child. Dr. Martin and his wife visited your parents. You cried, and you clearly heard Emma Martin tell your mother that she should not go to you, and then you would be quiet.

(Dr. and Emma Martin are old friends of my parents, and their age—early seventies, or nearly so. I have childhood memories of them, of course. As soon as Seth mentioned it, I immediately saw a distinct resemblance between Emma Martin, as she had been, and the young girl Pat. The smile in both was much alike. Consciously I had made no such connection however, before Seth mentioned it, but had sensed something familiar about Pat Friday evening.

(Jane said she did not know I had taken cod liver oil as a child. I remember doing this, and disliking it intensely. My parents have told me often that I displayed hay fever symptoms by the age of 3 or so, so evidently the first cod liver oil episode was earlier than this, and before my conscious memory. Jane insisted I hadn’t mentioned cod liver oil to her, though I had discussed castor oil.

(I have no conscious memory of such an episode.)