“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Part of the session grew out of our recent reactions to the televised newscasts, as well as what we’ve been reading lately, concerning the mass suicide in Guyana, the shooting of the mayor of San Francisco, problems with inflation, the Middle East —any of what seemed to be an infinite number of ills the species has created for itself. I must remember that my own caustic reactions pass rather quickly—even if they do return—but that they have a considerable effect on Jane. In some fashion, in order to maintain sanity, I end up laughing at what goes on in the world—probably a last resort. But I’m afraid some of my responses affect Jane more deeply, aside from her problems with her own reactions.

(By the same token, I try to keep Seth’s material in mind concerning her own challenges and problems, and this has helped enormously. It has certainly freed us from a good amount of worry, no matter what residue is left.

(9:20.) The flaws of religion in its organized form are often far more hidden than those of government. They are here brought into the light—flashed into millions of living rooms. Your sciences, religions, and your culture, has brought you into a peculiar position: “Forget your problems and they will go away.” This is considered the most intellectually asinine (amused), Pollyanna-like statement. At best a misleading phrase, encouraging laziness, and at its worst it is considered a cruel misstatement of fact.

How do you solve the problems? Your culture says that you concentrate upon them. Look for evidence of them everywhere. Contrast man’s position with an ideal state. Curse your ignorance, and search for evidence of man’s sinful nature. And many who do not believe in religion per se certainly believe in man’s sinful nature—though perhaps giving it a more scientific name. So your culture believes that by publicizing crimes of whatever nature, you will somehow eradicate them.

Now to some extent, because of beliefs, because of the public’s new knowledge through television of new nefarious acts, some governments do refrain from the more spectacular crimes. Overall, however, the concentration upon any problem, upon its negative aspects, automatically increases the problem.

I say the same thing to you so often because in one way or another I hope to get through the opposite accumulation of seeming evidence to the contrary, for you are everywhere surrounded by it. Forget your problems and they will go away. That almost sounds like the babbling of a child or an idiot.

Mothers tell children to forget their troubles. The children, not realizing how dumb their poor mothers really are, often do just that—and discover that their problems do indeed disappear. If you worry about the world, you can somehow perhaps save it—or so many people think. If you don’t worry about the world, you are considered unfeeling, and it certainly seems ridiculous to imagine that the world can somehow take care of itself, and even remedy whatever damage it seems man has done to it.

But no: it seems that worrying will get you someplace. It provides impetus, and so it does—by promoting further problems.

(With much amused irony:) The foolhardy, the brave, the utterly courageous, might even take a step further, and imagine that whatever problem is involved no longer exists, or to pretend that “it will go away,” for in any case “it is not as bad as I thought.”

You might each secretly believe that such worrying will frighten Ruburt enough “to make him do something,” and that is hardly the case—for worrying always increases stress. Whenever possible, minimize the impediments in your minds. Now Ruburt has started doing that. At least keep in mind what I have said, for it is true. To the extent that you forget the problem, it will vanish. Physically, Ruburt is improving, as you can see—but he used a stimulus of fear —the fear that otherwise he might be bedridden.