“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(My remarks came about in response to Jane’s wondering comments about what, if any, part beliefs could play in one getting so ill at such a young age. I thought our frame of reference wasn’t large enough. If one wanted to consider telepathy, that could have an effect. So could the idea of reincarnation, and of counterparts, I added —three situations not considered within our ordinary contemporary scheme of things.)

Children are extremely sensitive, of course, to their parents’ feelings and beliefs, particularly since they are dependent upon the parents to meet their needs. They can accept roles in somewhat the same way that children play at being sick, and in extreme cases some children find the game becomes only too real.

It is possible that such a healing can automatically give the family as a whole a new set of beliefs. If not, of course, one member or another may become ill, or the child might have a relapse. As probabilities go, however, the child’s experience is enough to show it that such illness can indeed vanish overnight. Now that knowledge is a part of that child’s experience, and the cure will be the great event of his life, in that it will always be in the back of his mind as he grows.

The child becomes a teacher for the parents, for the doctors who treated him, for the people who read the Enquirer, and for all the people who will meet the child as he matures. Remember the old man. Here the hypnosis, the suggestions, were self-applied, although many came from society’s beliefs. The man was a contractor, given to physical labor in his younger years, but convinced that the minute he retired his body would begin to fail. It would deteriorate with age.

Furthermore. He believed that physical exertion was life itself, and he little appreciated the world of the mind, so little by little the self-suggestions took effect. His illness itself made him question, until finally he realized the great mental vitality he possessed. That mental vitality led him to trust his body once again, and to act in direct contradiction to those previous beliefs of the doctors, family, friends, and society that had so bound him.

(10:02.) Your friend Bob McClure believes that the self cannot be trusted, these beliefs coming from his parents’ interpretation of Christianity.

Your friend then turned to other religions that still stressed the same beliefs, though in a more exotic form. To him sexual love must stand in direct opposition to spiritual love, so that his relationships with women put him in an impossible situation—and desire itself ultimately becomes a condition from which one must escape. (Dryly:) In the terms of earthly beliefs, there is but one escape from desire.