“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.”

As you read this, think back to various illnesses you have had, and see how this applies. Here Seth discusses illness in its relationship not only to the surface personality but to our deepest biological frameworks. Seth had previously spoken about Sally’s (Jon’s wife’s) need to disassociate herself from her “sick” identity. Now he elaborated: