“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

She was in her early thirties, with a good job, but she looked down on all of the other employees. Her marriage had ended in divorce before she moved here, and while she was always talking about getting married again, she had a great distrust of men. I think she really hated them. She didn’t think much better of women, yet at times she could be very warmhearted. She took a liking to Rob and myself, and often we would sit, she and I at this same table where I’m writing this book, and chat.

She always began with one of her fantastically funny sarcastic tales about someone she knew. She had an uncanny ability to sense people’s weak points and make fun of them. For all of that, when she was not sick she had a fine vitality, and a keen, native shrewdness. We played a sort of game: I liked her, but I wasn’t going to be besieged by a barrage of negative thoughts and pessimism for an hour, no matter how wittily presented—and she knew it. The worse part was that she really was funny and it was hard as the devil not to laugh at her, even when I knew I shouldn’t. And she knew this, too. So she would try to see how far she could go before I would call her on it and begin a “mini-lecture,” pointing out that her attitude toward other people was largely responsible for her difficulties.

Emotionally, she went from exaggerated heights to exaggerated lows. Her age bothered her; she was certain that “life would be over by the time you reach forty”—and for her it was, by several years. Yet we were all astonished to hear of her death. Even though we realized that she was literally making herself sick, we had no idea that she was “sick to death.”

Remember what I said earlier, that we form physical reality as a replica of our inner ideas. This is a major premise of the Seth Material. Joan literally disliked everyone with few exceptions. She was convinced, furthermore, that she was unliked and unlikable. She felt persecuted, sure that people were talking or gossiping about her when her back was turned—because this was precisely what she did. Daily life contained all kinds of threats for her, and she kept her nervous system in a constant state of stress. Her body defenses were lowered. She was tired of the constant battle, never realizing that much of the war was one-sided and unwarranted. She projected her ideas of reality outward, and they literally led her to destruction.

“If you think, ‘I have a headache,’ and if you do not replace this suggestion by a positive one, then you are automatically suggesting that the body set up those conditions that will result in the continuation of the malady. I will give you a commercial that is better than your Excedrin, you see, the short headache. I will tell you how to have none at all.” This was the only touch of humor in the whole session. In a session devoted to a particular person, Seth usually goes out of his way to make a few jovial comments to set the person at his or her ease.

We had a short break, and Joan continued to complain of her friend’s drinking habits, how they only added to her own nervousness. She was certain that if she didn’t have this to contend with, her health would return. Quite vehemently, she set about blaming her friend for almost all of her problems. When Seth resumed, he was even more serious than before.

“These are examples, now. If an individual sees only evil and desolation in the physical world, it is because he is obsessed with evil and desolation and projects them outward, and closes his eyes to all else. If you want to know what you think of yourself, then ask yourself what you think of others, and you will find your answer.

“Another example: A very industrious individual thinks the majority of men are lazy and good for nothing. No one would ever think of calling him lazy or good for nothing, yet this may be precisely his own subconscious picture of himself, against which he drives himself constantly. And all of this without his realizing his basic concept of himself, and without recognizing that he projects his feared weaknesses outward unto others.

With all her other troubles, Joan was frequently bothered by severe headaches. Before closing, Seth gave her advice which can be used by anyone:

Later he made a very good point: “If desire for health leads instead to an emphasis upon symptoms to be overcome, you would be better off to avoid all thoughts of health or illness and concentrate in other directions, such as work. Such an emphasis can lead to a focus upon obstacles that stand in the way, and this reinforces the negative condition.”

Again, Seth is not suggesting we repress emotion. Spontaneity, above all, is the rule. If we were truly spontaneous, Seth says, we wouldn’t need to worry about positive suggestions because our health would be normally maintained.

“That is indeed your interpretation,” Seth said, “and this is because you set demands. Now I ask you, how far do you think a flower would get if in the morning it turned its face toward the sky and said, ‘I demand the sun. And now I need rain. So I demand it. And I demand bees to come and take my pollen. I demand, therefore, that the sun shall shine for a certain number of hours, and that the rain shall pour for a certain number of hours . . . and that the bees come— bees A, B, C, D, and E, for I shall accept no other bees to come. I demand that discipline operate, and that the soil shall follow my command. But I do not allow the soil any spontaneity of its own. And I do not allow the sun any spontaneity of its own. And I do not agree that the sun knows what it is doing. I demand that all these things follow my ideas of discipline’?

Again, Seth stared at “the Dean,” but now he spoke to the others in the group. “In the spontaneous working of your nervous system, what do we find? We see here the head of ‘the Dean’ that rests upon his shoulders, and the intellect that demands discipline. And yet all of this rests upon the spontaneous workings of the inner self, and the nervous system of which the intellect knows little. And without that spontaneous discipline, there would be no ego to sit upon the shoulders and demand discipline. . . . Now that I have proven how jovial I am, you may all take a break.”

“Each of you in your way contribute. For you can consider the body of the earth and all that you know . . . the trees, the seasons, and the skies, to some extent as your own contribution . . . the combination of spontaneity and discipline that gives fruit to the earth.”

All of nature operates spontaneously. Our bodies will be healthy automatically if we do not project false ideas upon them.

But, of course, it is not as simple as all this. In speaking directly to people in class sessions, Seth tries to explain matters as clearly as possible and in a way that they can understand. In our own sessions he goes much more deeply into such subjects. In the following excerpts from a private session, he explains the biological and psychic elements of pain and consciousness and also states that illness itself is sometimes a purposeful activity.

“All illness is momentarily accepted by the personality as a part of the self, and here lies its danger. It is not just symbolically accepted, and I am not speaking in symbolic terms. An impeding action such as an illness is quite literally accepted by the personality structure, and once this occurs, a conflict develops. The self does not want to give up a portion of itself, even while that portion may be painful or disadvantageous. There are many reasons behind this.

“Action accepts all stimuli in an affirmative manner. It is only when it becomes compartmented, so to speak, in the highly differentiated consciousness that such refinements occur. I am not saying that unpleasant stimuli will not be felt as unpleasant and reacted against in less self-conscious organisms. I am saying that they will rejoice even in their automatic reaction, because any stimuli and reaction represents sensation, and sensation is a method by which consciousness knows itself.

“The complicated human personality with its physical structure has evolved, along with some other structures, a highly differentiated ‘I’ consciousness [the ego, in other words], whose very nature is such that it attempts to preserve the apparent boundaries of identity. To do so it chooses between actions. But beneath this sophisticated gestalt are the simpler foundations of its being, and indeed the very acceptance of all stimuli without which identity would be impossible.

“Without this acquiescence to even painful stimuli, the structure would never maintain itself, for the atoms and molecules within it constantly accept such stimuli, and joyfully suffer even their own destruction. Being aware of their identity within all action, and not having the complicated ‘I’ structure, there is no reason for them to fear destruction. They are aware of themselves as a part of action.

“Now all of this is basic knowledge if you would understand why the personality accepts even an impeding action such as illness despite the ego’s resistence to pain.”

“Illness could not be called an impeding action unless it persisted long after its purpose was served. Even then you could make no judgment without knowing all the facts . . . for the illness could still serve by giving the personality a sense of security, being kept on hand as an ever-present emergency device in case the new unifying system should fail.

“All illness is almost always the result of another action that cannot be followed through. When the lines to the original action are released and the channels opened, the illness will vanish. However, the thwarted action may be one with disastrous consequences which the illness may prevent. The personality has its own logic.”

“Many problems are never materialized. They remain as blank spots, uncultivated and unproductive areas within the psyche, areas in which there are no problems because no experience is permitted. . . . There is then a mental, psychic, or emotional lack of sight and a complete blockage. Such a denial of experience is far more detrimental than a specific problem, for there is an inability on the part of the personality to express itself at all in that area.”

At the same moment I realized that my job was to explain the facts to her. I caught up with her, gently led her back into the house, and said, “Miss C, you don’t have to worry anymore about dying. It’s already happened. Your mind can be perfectly clear now. It’s all right.” She seemed to understand, and as I finished speaking with her, another person came to take my place.

I’d read about such instances, but I have to admit that I thought they were highly imaginative accounts until I found myself guiding Miss C. The point is that she was so frightened of death, she didn’t realize it was all over. Since her physical body was quite dead, she was in her astral body; yet she was acting confused, and her mind was still unclear, as if she still had hardening of the arteries.

“Men and women have joyfully honored the evening and the dawn and listened to the heart pulse within them with a blessing and a joy, who have not had one hundredth of your blessings or one-third the reason to look forward to another day, and they have fulfilled themselves and brought joy to others. They accepted life on its terms, and in so accepting they were filled with a grace … that comes from giving life all that you have.”

“I do not want you to have the attitude that health or status, for example, is automatically an indication of spiritual wealth. … Some of you do well in certain areas and are blocked in others. The ideal is to use all of your abilities, and in doing this you will help others and the race of which you are part automatically.”

“When I tell you that you lived, for example, in 1836, I say this because it makes sense to you now. You live all of your reincarnatons at once, but you find this difficult to understand.”