“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You should desire good health because it is a natural state of your being. You should trust in the innate intelligence of your own being... which produces good health. Health is a natural state of your being. Through your physical image the energy of the universe expresses itself. You as an individualized consciousness are a part of this, and you cannot express yourself fully nor fulfill your purpose as an identity, as an individual, if you are not in good health... for the effects of the body are felt in the mind... and the effects of the mind are felt in the body. You distort the picture. Now I did not intend a question and answer service this evening, but I seem to be involved in one. And some evening I will turn the tables. And when I ask you questions, I will expect some answers. And they will not be easy questions... and they will not be general questions. And I will make you search for the answers... and the answers will form steps upon which you can walk and will serve as foundations within which you can travel within yourselves. But they will be your answers and not my answers.

(Pause. [Tom:] “My interpretation of what he said is that (1) good health is a natural part of ourselves, and so we should naturally desire it, and (2) good health in itself is not the objective at all. It is what you can do when you are in a state of good health. We carried it into another dimension besides health... vocational aspects. We project ourselves ahead mentally to vocational status we are interested in, and by doing that, accomplish it. It is not the status itself that is the end. It is what we are able to do through it, that we should really be aiming at.

(“By our projecting our thoughts to this finished product, we can influence our health, our future, our position, etc. We should picture ourselves as being in a state of good health. Now I would assume that this same thing applies to a station or vocation...”)

But never as a finished product. For a state of health is not an end product.... or an unchanging station in those terms. It is the ability to effectively handle energy in a constructive way for your own benefit and the benefit of others. The state of health is a poor term. You should indeed imagine yourself, therefore, able to handle your energy effectively for your own good and the good of others; to imagine yourself as a channel through which the creativity of the universe can express itself. For when you harbor negative ideas and resentments, then indeed you set up a block and the block causes distortions. Now you call them illnesses in many instances. They are distortions. The energy is being distorted and misused and misshapen.

You should desire good health because it is a natural state of your being. You should trust in the innate intelligence of your own being—which produces good health. Health is a natural state of your being. [...] You as an individualized consciousness are a part of this, and you cannot express yourself fully nor fulfill your purpose as an identity, as an individual, if you are not in good health—for the effects of the body are felt in the mind...and the effects of the mind are felt in the body. [...]

[...] [Theodore:] “My interpretation of what he said is that (1) good health is a natural part of ourselves, and so we should naturally desire it, and (2) good health in itself is not the objective at all. It is what you can do when you are in a state of good health. We carried it into another dimension besides health...vocational aspects. [...]

(“By projecting our thoughts to this finished product, we can influence our health, our future, our position, etc. We should picture ourselves as being in a state of good health. [...]

[...] For a state of health is not an end product—or an unchanging station in those terms. [...] The state of health is a poor term. [...]

There are innumerable stages of health, from high, sheer, energetic exuberance (long pause) to dwindling lethargy and discomfort. [...] There are, in fact, an almost infinite number of stages connected with the state of health. You could invent a completely different way of regarding human health by numbering and defining each of those stages. Instead, of course, your society has chosen to recognize and define all of those stages that are detrimental to health — stages that are recognizable because of health’s absence to one degree or another.

[...] (Long pause.) There are also individuals whose beliefs cause them to feel very uncomfortable when they are in a state of health — and for these individuals poor health brings a sense of security and safety.

DAREDEVILS, DEATH-DEFIERS, AND HEALTH

(Jane gave it to me yesterday afternoon: “Daredevils, Death-Defiers, and Health.”)

[...] So-called states of health and disease are also changing constantly — and in those vaster terms disease in itself is a kind of health, for it makes life and health itself possible (all quite intently).

Before we discuss the human situation more specifically in relationship to health and “dis-ease” — let us consider the so-called states of health and disease as they apply in planetary terms, and as they operate in all species. [...]

I used quotation marks around the entire heading for this chapter to stress the point that the heading is written with your own ideas of health and disease in mind. Actually, however, regardless of appearances and misreadings of natural events, the very idea of disease as you usually think of it, is chauvinistic (louder) in health rather than in sexual terms.

“STATES OF HEALTH AND DISEASE”

(As quickly as she could once she became aware of what was happening that Sunday morning, Jane typed a 3-page summary or outline of the contents for The Way Toward Health, including chapter headings, then wrote a very condensed statement about how the whole thing came to her. [...] Thus, everything she’s received so far on the health book is on file, ready to be used should she choose to follow this new idea any further.

[...] The book’s title is The Way Toward Health. [...]

[...] I do believe it possible for Jane to deliver “Unknown” Reality and The Way Toward Health concurrently through Seth, and to carry on her “regular” writing, for I think we have yet to learn the limits of her abilities [although as she continues to develop them she increases our knowledge of human potential]. [...]

[...] Then while doing dishes this morning I had the feeling a whole book on health is there or here. [...]

They pick up their first ideas about health and disease from parents and doctors, and by the actions of those people to their own discomfiture. Before they can even see, children are already aware of what their parents expect from them in terms of health and disease, so that early patterns of behavior are formed, to which they then react in adulthood.

For now we will speak of children who possess ordinary good health, but who may also have some of the usual childhood “diseases.” Later we will discuss children with exceptionally severe health conditions.

THE STATE OF CHILDHOOD IN
RELATIONSHIP TO HEALTH, AND HINTS FOR PARENTS

We will begin the next chapter, which is to be called: “The State of Childhood in Relationship to Health, and Hints for Parents.”

In those terms, the subconscious can consider the health of a relationship quite as important as the health of the body, or even more so. [...]

In those terms, when the subconscious considers health, it must also take into consideration the individual’s strong intents, in which case it is insuring the mental and emotional health in a somewhat different fashion.

[...] He thought mainly of the health of your relationship together, and the health of his work. [...]

If this were not so, the subconscious would not only see to it that the body was in ordinary good health under any conditions, but it would automatically refuse to allow any individual to put its health in jeopardy.

[...] The subject of health cannot be considered in an isolated fashion, but must be seen in that greater context that gives health itself a value and a meaning. [...]

This chapter consists of a potpourri of different ideas — merely to hint at the multitudinous issues connected with health and well-being.

[...] There is always an unending reservoir of energy at the command of each person, however, regardless of circumstances, and we will also discuss the ways in which you can learn to tap that source and better your own health situation.

[...] It is actually far more important that we stress the symptoms of health and those methods, beliefs, and healings that promote them.

Certainly, such ideas will sound like medical heresy to many readers, but the sooner you begin to look at health and “disease” in these new terms, the healthier and happier you will become. (Long pause.) You are not one thing and illness another, for your thoughts and emotions are the triggers that lead to bouts of poor health. [...]

[...] We are presently working on a book to be called The Way Toward Health, and I hope the material in that book will benefit you in the most personal of terms, and allow you to experience the exuberance, joy, strength and good health that are your heritage. [...]

[...] (Pause.) All of this talk about exuberance, health and vitality may seem quite beside the point to many of you. [...]

[...] We will have more to say about such issues later on in the book — for I hope to show you how certain feelings and beliefs do indeed promote health, while others promote an unfortunate extension or exaggeration of perfectly normal bodily processes, or viral activity.

[...] The healthy person takes health for granted. [...] He can appreciate his health as he can appreciate the air, without feeling that either is going to be taken from him. He is not concerned with his health because he takes it on trust unthinkingly, as he takes his life on trust.

[...] In very important issues, both you and Ruburt are in excellent health. In every important manner, you personally are in the best of health.

[...] The idea of health however becomes as persuasive as ill health was.

The abilities have always been present, however, latent as within each man health is there, though perhaps latent in the same way. [...]

[...] I do not mean to imply that exercise is detrimental to good health. [...] The reason can promote your good health or actually impede it.

[...] Such attitudes will, of course, be detrimental to feelings of well-being, health, and exuberance. While it is true that medical technology has many serious defects, it is also true that many people believe in the medical profession to such a degree that it would be nearly impossible for them to survive in good health without it.

Thus far in this book, we have barely begun to touch upon the multitudinous issues involved in good health or in its absence. [...]

[...] Your ideas about your own health are even more important than those steps you take to promote it.

[...] Health should be considered then —and this is important—as a means to a desired end; full productive creative work; full use of abilities; daily enjoyment; helping others. When he focuses upon health itself as such, he overconcentrates. Health as a means to excellent performance in fields that are important to him; health as a means to use those abilities with which he has been honored; health as a means to bring joy to himself and hence to others; health as a source of strength that is available always to help him use those abilities and to fulfill his destiny here, now...

[...] Health as a means of allowing creative energy to flow through him.

[...] (Pause.) This will drastically reduce his concentration on symptoms. (Long pause.) He can imagine health as a means also of showing others, of setting an example. [...]

[...] If you find yourselves doing this you would be better to drop any emphasis on health specifically. [...]

(Pause at 9:42.) That is why belief systems are so important in dealing with health and illness. [...]

[...] You are betting upon disease and not health. [...]

[...] Even more unfortunate are the special policies for the elderly that detail in advance all of the most stereotyped and distorted concepts about health and age. [...]

Even more disadvantageous are the suggestions given, with the best of purposes in mind, concerning specific health areas dealing with prevention. [...]

[...] Your health and the daily weather interact with each other. [...] I admit that some of this material quite contradicts your usual ideas, but the health of your body is intimately related not only to the state of world health, but to the physical climate as well.

[...] She said that she wanted “to do book stuff, but I’m spending all my time trying to find out about my health.” I said I was willing to forget about the health business for a while — a long while, if necessary. [...]

The body’s health is the expression of inner well-being. Poor health is an expression also, and it may serve many purposes. [...]

Later on we will discuss more thoroughly distorted ideas about the self and the body in particular that stand in the way of natural exuberance and good health.

[...] Some public-service announcements stress the “fact” that the individual can be gravely threatened by high blood pressure, for example, even though he or she feels in excellent physical health.

(Very long pause.) Good health is closely related, of course, to a family’s beliefs about the body. If parents believe that the body is somehow an inferior vehicle for the spirit, or if they simply view the body as unreliable or weak and vulnerable, then children will at an early age begin to consider good health as a rarity, and learn to take depression, poor spirits, and bodily aches and pains to be a natural, normal condition of life.

There is no area of thought or belief that does not touch upon the subject of health in one way or another. [...]

(3:51.) Again, it is a good idea for Ruburt to remind himself of the connections between his idea of his body and its relationship to his sexuality and to health. [...]

I am speaking of a deeper relationship to the environment, however, and of the environment’s symbolic as well as practical aspects in relationship to health and illness. Your ideas about your own body, your mind, the universe and your part in it, and your relationship to family, friends, and environment are all connected to your state of health, to your sense of well-being, or your feelings of dis-hyphen-ease. [...]

[...] It is possible, however, to carry this idea even further, so that a person in poor health should be seen by the physician in relationship to the family, and also in relationship to the environment. [...]

[...] This is not always the case, by any means, but when such a person does recover fully, and maintains good health, it is because beliefs, attitudes, and feelings have changed for the better, and because the person “has a heart” again, comma, in other words, because the patient himself has regained the will to live.

[...] I bid you a fond good afternoon, and again I quicken those coordinates that are so important to health and vitality.

To be healthy you must believe in health. [...] He will replace an idea of illness with one of health. [...]

[...] Often it operates as a framework in which poor health and disease are not only accepted as normal, but the concepts behind them strengthened. [...]

[...] Far too often the doctor shares the patient’s unshakable belief in poor health and disease.

[...] You are immune from ill health as long as you believe that you are.

[...] These are natural interactions, and since you live in a world where, overall, people are healthy enough to contribute through labor, energy, and ideas, health is the dominating ingredient—but there are biological interactions between all physical bodies that are the basis for that health, and the mechanisms include the interactions of viruses, and even the periods of indisposition, that are not understood.

[...] You could not have maintained his health for many long years in any case. I would like to make clear, of course, that animals certainly do have energy to maintain their own health, but this is strongly reinforced as a rule by the vitality of human beings to whom the animals are emotionally attached. [...]

Tonight’s session isn’t book dictation, but the large portions of it I’m presenting convey useful insights into our social behavior and social health—and as I show in Note 1, those states can include our interactions with animals.

Subject: Viruses as part of the body’s overall health system, and viruses as biological statements.

I mentioned in the past those suggestions given by Ruburt to himself, concerning the continued health of the physical organism. [...] In our dream material we will go deeply into the nature of health suggestions given in connection with the dream situation, and such suggestions may be considered a part of this evening’s list. [...]

[...] You have done much better in the overall in health maintenance than you did in the past; since you are both in excellent organic condition you can say that you have both done well. However there is a large difference between a general state that is free of disease and a state of exuberant health, in which the inner and outer selves are perfectly attuned.

[...] He has helped your health often, automatically. He is a health-giving personality in this respect, generally speaking.

[...] The individual’s health is determined by his ability to take advantage of, or to use, this mechanism.