“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

How can you stay healthy? How can you get rid of any illnesses you might have? Exactly what is the connection between your state of mind and your health? Seth’s ideas on this subject have been of great value to Rob and me, and to everyone who has come in contact with them. We have put his concepts to work in our own lives, and sometimes both of us wonder how we managed daily life before we understood the close relationship between thoughts, emotions, and health.

Yet she had been warned. Two years before her death she asked to attend a regular Seth session. Seth was quite serious and not as jovial as usual, and at the time I thought that he was being rather hard on her. Now I see that he was trying to impress her with the necessity of changing her attitudes and reactions. He stated his ideas on health as clearly and directly as possible, dealing with their practical application. I can almost see Joan sitting there, legs crossed, before the session. If she had been able to follow his advice, I am convinced she would be alive and well today. I am also sure that readers who understand and follow Seth’s ideas on health will find their own greatly improved.

Joan sat tapping her foot nervously. There were no wisecracks. At the time, she was dating a man who drank too much. “His drinking makes me irritable and angry,” she said. “He’s my problem. He’s the one who makes me feel nervous.”

“These mass suggestions include not only those given to him by others, both verbally and telepathically, but also those he has given to himself, both in the waking and dream states. If an individual is in a state of despondency, this is because he has already become prey to negative suggestions of his own and others. Now if you see him and think that he looks miserable”—Seth looked at Joan sharply—“or that he is an incurable drunk, then these suggestions are picked up by him subconsciously, though you have not spoken a word. And in his already weakened condition they will be accepted and acted upon.

“If, on the other hand, under the same circumstances, you stop yourself and say gently to yourself, ‘He will begin to feel better now, or his drinking is temporary, and there is indeed hope here,’ then you have given him aid, for the suggestions will at least represent some small telepathic ammunition to help fight off the war of despondency.

“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.

“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.

“This is the difference between repression and positive action. In repression the resentment is shoved beneath and ignored. With our method it is recognized, imaginatively plucked out as being undesirable, and replaced by the thought of peace and constructive energy.” (Seth has frequently cautioned me against repressing aggressions out of fear of them. Rob says that it is quite funny—to him!—when Seth, speaking through me, takes me to task in this way. His suggestions have always been excellent, however.)

One of my students, a businessman, always gets worried when Seth speaks about spontaneity. He equates it with lack of discipline. Seth calls this man “the Dean,” with affectionate humor, because he’s one of my best students, and the others listen to his psychic adventures with a good deal of interest. But he’s very much a community man also, and the word “spontaneity” can be like a red scarf to a bull, at least as far as he is concerned! And I have to admit that many of us have the feeling that our inner emotions are too hot to handle.

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.”

Now Seth comes to this point, very important in his theories: “This acquiescence to even painful stimuli is a basic part of the nature of consciousness. Action does not differentiate between pleasant, painful, or joyful stimuli. These distinctions come much later, and on another level [here Seth is considering personality as composed of energy or action].

Over and over again Seth tells us that physical symptoms are communications from the inner self, indications that we are making mental errors of one kind or another. He compares the body in one session to a sculpture “never really completed, the inner self trying out various techniques on its test piece. The results are not always of the best, but the sculptor is independent of his product and knows there will be others.”

“The Dean” wrinkled his brow. “You mean that if I’m in good health, I’m spiritually in good shape?”

Seth sessions are held in full light in the Butts’ living room. Jane’s husband, Rob, using his own shorthand system, takes down Seth’s words verbatim. Above, as Jane goes into trance, she—as Seth—removes her glasses and has thrown them onto the couch. (Rich Conz)

“Jung enlarged on some of his concepts shortly before he died. He has changed a good many of them since then.”

For the envelope test in Session 300 (which is described in Chapter Eight), the target item was a scrap of paper torn from The New York Times of November 7, 1966. Note the words “Election Day” and the models on the major portion of the page, which Seth alluded to in giving his impressions of the fragment. (Rich Conz)