“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

What is not understood is that the same sort of conditioning also operates, not only in the reaction to events but in the formation of events. You predispose yourselves toward the construction of events of a particular nature, to which of course you then react.

This sort of behavior continues of course whether you are waking or sleeping, and is highly involved in the construction of dream images and constructions. There are areas of activity to which you do not react simply because you have not activated sympathetic pathways within yourself. These require much more effort on your part, but even the physical brain has latent within it the possibilities for many kinds of activities that still remain generally unknown.

The inner self therefore uses the physical system to express its own inclinations and ideas of reality. It is the inner self that unfolds those patterns of behavior spoken about in the article you read on infant growth. (In a recent issue of Time magazine.) Such unfoldings always occur from within, responding to signals not from the exterior but from the interior environment.

The inner self is acquainting itself with reality as it exists there. In many cases it is emerging into a new world. Since the learning process is involved, there are errors. Any faulty constructions however are used by the inner self in a feedback system and as a part of the learning process. Your system is not the most elementary, but it is one of the most elementary, and it is a way that the inner self acquaints itself with certain basic facts.

There is form. The very mechanism of the body however is so constructed that it can bear the brunt of many errors, and free itself from them, though this may not seem to be the case at times. Nevertheless yours is a slow-motion world in many ways as far as your perceptions are concerned, while you are within it. Your body is much like a sculptor or a sculpt, never really completed, the inner self trying out various techniques of creativity on its first test piece. The results are not always of the best, but the sculptor is independent of his product and knows there will others.

Now you may take your break and we will continue. Ruburt for example has found out what certain mental patterns will do to his image, and he is now attempting to undo the damage that became apparent. Without the damage he would not have accepted the obvious truths. Now the sculptor does at times identify with his sculpt, but never entirely, and it will help him if he remembers that he did the damage, and therefore can undo it.

Not only that, but the lesson will prevent him from doing more serious damage. Tell him that he has, or he is, learning a lesson in perspective, whether he knows it or not.

Do not forget however that you are a portion of the inner self. It is not using you. You are the portion of it that experiences physical reality. Now physical illnesses that are not critical but observable, that do not involve the loss of say of a limb or of an organ, generally (underlined) represent problems that are in the process of being solved, problems that are in quotes “out in the open.”

Now these particular kinds of illnesses are the end product of a process of discovery. Inner problems are literally brought out into the open when they can be faced, recognized, dealt with and conquered, using the symptoms as measuring points of progress. A trial-and-error system is (underlined) involved; but inner processes are reflected rather quickly in these cases upon the physical condition.

Now this was Ruburt’s state before the emergence of the symptoms. The explosive first emergence represented the first forceful emergence of the problem into physical terms, but as such was actually productive and of a healing nature—much more beneficial, say, than if such emergence had not occurred.

Ready answers for he or his son would only betray them. They would use them as excuses. Now give me, a moment ... I will tell him that many of his worries concerning the boy are projections of his own fears, and will not materialize. The boy is reacting telepathically for one thing to the father’s worries. The best thing the father can do for now is to be simply kind to the boy, but relieve the child of his heavy-handed thoughts mentally. Leave the boy alone. He is picking up the father’s negative attitudes telepathically.

In such a case the difficulties are not being faced by others, but only projected by them upon another. In many cases the other is a younger individual who is more resilient, has more energy, a more instinctive use of the life force, who is better able to bear the problems for the whole unit, and who will actually escape from them. Sometimes he can solve the problem. Often when he leaves the problem simply falls back where it belonged originally—upon the shoulders of the parents. It is for this reason often that parents have difficulties when the children leave. Now unless you have questions...