“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As Seth suggested we do yesterday, we tried free association today. It worked well, and came about spontaneously when I dropped my notebook on the bed when Jane asked me to get her water. I was tired and somewhat exasperated, and she picked this up from me immediately. It set off a chain of associations for her, and she pursued them while saying she was half embarrassed to mention them. Here are the brief notes I wrote as she talked:

(When I seemed exasperated when Jane asked me to do something for her, and dropped my notebook on the bed, she at once felt a strong fear that she’d exasperate me beyond bearing — that she couldn’t afford to get me mad at her. This at once led her to feeling that as a child it had been vital that she avoid the disapproval of others — her mother, Marie, especially. And even in college, the same thing. Jane feared that if she got Marie mad, Marie would get sick and die. Marie used to tell Jane it was her fault the mother was sick, and that it was also her fault that Jane’s grandmother died, and the housekeeper. “If you didn’t watch yourself,” Jane said, “you could get hurt yourself or hurt other people.”

(Jane also felt that the sessions could be responsible for more deaths, or hurting people. She’d been terrified holding sessions, way back in the beginning, for the woman in Louisiana who had MS. At the same time she’d felt a responsibility toward helping her. Jane basically didn’t want anything to do with sick people — was afraid she could hurt them in sessions.

(4:30.) For all of man’s fear of disease, however, the species has never been destroyed by it, and life has continued to function with an overall stability, despite what certainly seems to be the constant harassment and threat of illness and disease. The same is true, generally speaking, of all species. Plants and insects fit into this larger picture, as do all fish and fowl.

The subject matter of suffering is certainly vitally connected to the subject at hand, but basically speaking, disease and suffering are not necessarily connected. Suffering and death are not necessarily connected either. The sensations of suffering, and the pain, do exist. Some are indeed quite natural reactions, and others are learned reactions to certain events. Walking barefoot on a bed of fire would most likely cause most of you, my readers, to feel the most acute pain — while in some primitive societies, under certain conditions the same situation could result instead in feelings of ecstasy or joy.

We want to discuss “disease” as it exists apart from suffering for now, then. Then we will discuss pain and suffering and their implications. I do want to mention, however, that pain and suffering are also obviously vital, living sensations — and therefore are a part of the body’s repertoire of possible feelings and sensual experience. They are also a sign, therefore, of life’s vitality, and are in themselves often responsible for a return to health when they act as learning communications.