“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You mentioned telepathy. And wondered what the child was picking up from the parents. Here I want to emphasize the importance that telepathy can play, and the vital role of suggestion.

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.

In a way the child allowed itself to be hypnotized into the condition, the symptoms becoming potent physical “posthypnotic” suggestions. The parents did not want the child to suffer. But on the other hand the mother was early frightened by the idea of a vital male baby, who might be overly rambunctious and difficult to control. She was overly fearful, ironically enough, for the child’s safety—and hence he developed a condition that kept him under scrutiny all the while.

(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.

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.

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