“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You show a certain picture of yourself to the world. You stress certain characteristics, and show them to others. There are habitual patterns of behavior that operate, as you more or less stabilize your picture of yourself in relationship with families and friends. Sometimes that picture is a fairly faithful representation, and sometimes people make artificial portraits of themselves, and instead of speaking for themselves to others, they let their artificial portraits do it for them.

Many illnesses are physically experienced facades that are meant to alter the person’s relationship with the world. They act often like barriers, or coats of armor, and according to the situation another person must first confront this condition or coat of armor, if he ever hopes to establish contact with the personality. I hope that is clear.

(Pause.) Now Ruburt has had such a condition, for many reasons often given. He is trying to free himself. To do so he must change his own reality, alter his feeling of relationship with himself, and between himself and others. His physical situation—the symptoms—are public to the extent that others know he has difficulties. New sentence: When attempts are made to change that reality, then the reality of family and friends is also changed to some extent. Your dreams and Sue’s allow you, ever so subtly, to change your own views of Ruburt’s behavior. You see him operating normally. So has Tam, incidentally. Such dream behavior helps to break the heavy-handed stress of “daily physical evidence.” (Pause.) Exterior changes begin on the inside, and appear then physically—and not the other way around.