“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Two notes: 1. Last Thursday, March 15, Frank Longwell brought a two-day-old lamb with him when he visited us. Remarkable, that a creature that young could navigate so well, as well as possess a kind of beauty Jane and I were so unaccustomed to. 2. Last Saturday afternoon, March 17, Bob McClure visited us unexpectedly. His cancer had reoccurred; he had taken a new series of treatments for it, and was again in a state of in-between, or perhaps remission. We had an enlightening talk, and by the time he left Bob said more than once that he’s “learned a lot” from Jane. Jane on the other hand was surprised at Bob’s lack of insight into the challenge of cancer that he’s taken on. But he seemed open to her ideas.

(As for myself, I have yet to add new questions to the list Seth suggested I make up, concerning his current material. This will take some study.

(Pause.) The child wanted to please the parents. He received an overabundance of sympathy, special treats, and so forth, so that his condition brought more and more rewards, even as he became more uncomfortable. The child responded in such a manner because of its own characteristics. Another child, for example, might have become overactive in rebellion. In a strange fashion, the pain represented heightened sensitivity – extremely unpleasant, but also represented a vital emotional bodily response of a direct nature. In other ways,the family behaved opaquely. Nothing seemed clear-cut.

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.

A man only gives up his soul when he has not met it face to face, and that is like bidding adieu to a stranger you have met at a train station: little loss, for you do not know what you have missed.