“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane was so uncomfortable from the hot and humid weather last night that she didn’t hold the regularly scheduled session. The temperature reached 94 degrees yesterday; at bedtime it was still 75, with a humidity of 68%. It’s the latter that she reacts to the most, it seems from my viewpoint. She promised a “short session” for this evening. I’ve often hesitated to mention it, but as I did remark a few days ago, I feel her reaction to the weather must have other causes — that is, besides those having to do with simple environmental conditions. As it is, life within the environment becomes difficult. Nor am I discussing living in an “ideal” environment all the time.

Some of this, again, is difficult to explain (pause), but in a fashion the intellect is a cultural (underlined) phenomenon. Period. It is amazingly resilient, in that according to the belief structures of any given historical period, it can orient itself along the lines of those beliefs, using all of its reasoning abilities to bring such a world picture into focus, collecting data that agree, and rejecting what does not.

I am speaking about the intellect here for our discussion, but remember it is everywhere cushioned also. There are backup systems, in other words (amused). If the intellect believes that the world (pause) is a threat to existence, then that belief will alter its intents, of course, and therefore the body’s activities. The beliefs of the intellect operate then as powerful suggestions, particularly when the intellect identifies with those beliefs, so that there is little distance between the intellect and the beliefs that it holds as true.

Your own attitudes, for example — and beliefs — about foreigners, Prentice-Hall, people’s stupidity and lack of integrity, put you in correspondence with those same beliefs on the part of others, resulting in the translation fiasco.¹ An entirely different kind of behavior could have been elicited from those same people. Like attracts like in that regard. Those same people, for example, all have, as you do, beliefs in people’s trustworthiness, and so forth — but under those conditions, at that time, you each — or rather you all — were in correspondence at many levels. The books were published. They have helped many people, and that is because you were also in correspondence as far as many of your more positive beliefs are concerned, and those did outweigh the others.

(9:14.) There are no magical methods, only natural ones that you use all of the time, although in some cases you use them for beliefs that you take for truths, when instead they are quite defective assumptions. A small example — one, incidentally, that Ruburt finally realized; but it is a beautiful instance of natural methods. He used it beautifully, even though the results were not pleasing at first. It also shows Ruburt’s growing understanding:

He heard tomorrow’s weather report (yesterday), groaned, thought of a very uncomfortable 90-degree temperature tomorrow [and] imagined himself miserable with the heat. Indeed, he began to feel warmer. In a flash he remembered previous days of discomfort, and in the next moment he projected those into the weekend. He felt trapped. Midway through this process he tried to catch himself, but he believed that his body could not handle the heat — and that belief outweighed his intent to change his thoughts, so they kept returning for perhaps ten minutes.

Now: Ruburt’s body is definitely recovering normal motion. Laying down is excellent. The additional moving about, however, from one place to another, is most beneficial. The sensations in his buttocks of heat, even burning at times, and in the legs and feet, all represent additional motion and beneficial activity. Sometimes at night the activity might make him feel uncomfortable, but the body is activating itself in certain ways while it is supported.

I am not an artist, but I know what I like as much as anyone else does.

(The theme of the dream had interested me pictorially from the beginning, I told her, but I’d almost lacked the nerve to try a rendition of it in paint. Late last week I started the charcoal drawing for the painting, however, figuring I could only try to see what I could do… So far, so good.)

1. In October 1979 Jane and I saw, to our dismay, that the Dutch publisher of the translation of Seth Speaks had violated his contract with Prentice-Hall by making many unauthorized cuts in the book. It was supposed to be published in its entirety, but language difficulties led to the mixup. After hearing from Jane and me and her editor, Tam Mossman, the Dutch publisher agreed to market a new, uncut translation of Seth Speaks this year. This will be an expensive undertaking — one we feel bad about now that our initial anger has passed.