“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The regularly scheduled session for last Wednesday, July 27,1966, was not held because Jane was ill for several days. Her pendulum told her the illness was brought on by a case of nerves and panic over the forthcoming publication of her ESP book. Jane hadn’t been working or sleeping well for some days prior to her illness.

[...] From the first signs of Ruburt’s illness you both took precisely the correct steps. The illness itself was a regrettable, but on the whole beneficial act, for if it had not occurred, and if the inner problems had not been worked out psychically, then a more serious illness could have been the result.

[...] Physical illness represents the failure to deal with these sufficiently or effectively, and in all cases the intensity and severity of physical illness is in proportion to the severity and intensity of the inner problem.

[...] Ruburt picked up the cat’s virus and became ill. With his illness he was not able to reinforce the cat’s condition by his own psychic creativity.

[...] Perhaps you can begin to understand, then, that the whole picture of health or illness must be considered from many more viewpoints than you might earlier have supposed. Many of you have been saturated by conventional, distorted ideas concerning health and illness in general. [...]

Before we can really study the nature of health or illness, we must first understand human consciousness and its relationship with the body.

(4:05.) In other cases of a child’s illness, have the child play a healing game, in which he or she playfully imagines being completely healthy again, outdoors and playing; or have the youngster imagine a conversation with a friend, describing the illness as past and gone. [...]

[...] When a child is ill-disposed or cranky, or has a headache, or another disorder that does not appear to be serious, parents can utilize this idea: have the child imagine that you are giving it a “better and better pill.” [...]

[...] If your child believes that a particular illness is caused by a virus, then suggest a game in which the youngster imagines the virus to be a small bug that he or she triumphantly chases away with a broom, or sweeps out the door. [...]

Instead of such procedures, children are often taught to believe that any situation or illness or danger will worsen, and that the least desirable, rather than the most desirable, solution will be found. [...]

[...] You might have a very serious illness that seemed to come from nowhere, and it may strike you as most unlikely indeed, that your own beliefs had anything to do with the inception of such a frightening malady.

[...] For the purposes of this particular chapter, we will discuss illnesses or situations that have arisen since childhood, so we are not including birth defects or very early life-endangering childhood accidents, or most unfortunate childhood family situations. [...]

(Long pause at 4:19.) In most cases, even the most severe illnesses or complicated living conditions and relationships are caused by an attempt to grow, develop or expand in the face of difficulties that appear to be unsurmountable to one degree or another.

[...] If you are severely ill and believe that the reasons for your symptoms exist in a past life, that you must “put up with it,” then you will not realize that your point of power is in the present, and you will not believe in the possibility of recovery.

[...] This is done for many different reasons (just as people choose to be ill in this life, regardless of the duration involved). [...]

[...] The same applies to seeming tragedies such as accidents, or severe illnesses that come at any time.

(Very emphatically at 10:03:) On an individual basis a grave illness, for instance, will represent the adoption of a particular highly intense focus in which a given aspect of usual experience is deliberately cut out or denied; the context of life itself must then be magnified along other lines. [...]

According to Seth, we choose our illnesses and the circumstances of our birth and death. This applies to every illness, whether it is a broken leg suffered from an accident, or an ulcer. [...] Some part of us is upset and chooses an illness or accident as a way of expressing this inner situation. [...]

[...] Nor do we choose illness per se as a given life situation, even though we may utilize such an illness as a part of a larger plan, as a method of teaching ourselves some important truth or as a means of developing certain abilities.

“While such situations as Sally’s illness are chosen by the personality, the individual is always left to work out its own solution. Complete recovery, illness, or early death are not preordained on the part of the entity [or whole self]. [...]

Why would anyone choose a life of illness or poverty? [...]

Health and illness are both evidences of the body’s attempt to maintain stability. [...] Overall, however, in the animals illness and disease play a life-giving role, keeping balance both within a species and between them, therefore insuring the future existence of all involved.

Dictation: There are too many aspects of what you think of as health and illness to discuss even in a book that is directed to personal reality, in which the body plays such an important role.

[...] The cycles of health and disease are felt as rhythms of the body by the large variety of animals, and even with them illness or disease has life-saving qualities on another level.

[...] In such cases the illness of only a few animals might send a whole herd to its safety, and a new food supply.

Nor will anything be gained by a patent and speedy program that is not solidly based on understanding, both understanding of the self in particular, and what you may call the mechanics involved in the creation of the illness itself, and in an understanding of those elements which caused the personality to develop the illness.

Nor do we want to rid him of one illness so quickly that he still feels a need for it, for in such a case he would indeed very promptly develop another. So, though he would wish that we go quickly, we shall go slowly, for the nature of his own reactions causes in some degree the necessity for the illness.

[...] There are here indeed other psychological and surface reasons for the illness, and also deeper reasons for the tendency toward this particular type of illness.

[...] I will have more to say concerning the manner in which the organic illness has been accepted by the ego, as a part of the ego’s self-image. [...]

[...] While such situations as Peggy’s illness are chosen by the entity, the individual is always left to work out its own solution. Complete recovery, illness or early death, for example, are not preordained on the part of the entity. [...]

The illness itself was secondary. One does not choose illness, per se, for a life situation. [...]

(John reported that his wife was very ill, had been in the hospital recently for several weeks, etc., and had not entered into a very deep trance state during sessions with a hypnotherapist; Seth had recommended Peg see such a professional. [...]

How many of you are ill? How many of your parents are ill? The illness is a physical materialization of an inner illness. You can rid yourself of the physical symptom perhaps, by taking medicine, but the illness will break out again and again. You can only rid yourself of such a condition by discovering the inner reason for it, by discovering the inner illness. [...]

[...] When a man is ill it is not necessarily because he wants to be ill subconsciously. It is not necessarily because he is receiving some hidden psychological benefit, or because the illness fulfills some need. He is ill often—always in fact—because of a distortion that is occurring within the self, and materialized in physical form.

A lifelong chronic illness of course is the same thing carried to extremes. [...]

If he falls ill I believe it will be at a party-type gathering, at least with many people about. A fairly serious but not critical illness, possibly caused by circulation fluctuations. The difficulty showing up in a right leg, though the origin of the illness will not be in the leg. Something of the sort of a blood clot in the leg, that type of illness.

[...] Our landlord operates a restaurant featuring a large party and catering service, so it is conceivable that a falling ill at a “party-type gathering” could refer to an illness occurring on those premises. [...]

[...] There will also be an illness for him, unless he makes some inner adjustments. [...]

[...] If not, of course, one member or another may become ill, or the child might have a relapse. As probabilities go, however, the child’s experience is enough to show it that such illness can indeed vanish overnight. [...]

(My remarks came about in response to Jane’s wondering comments about what, if any, part beliefs could play in one getting so ill at such a young age. [...]

[...] His illness itself made him question, until finally he realized the great mental vitality he possessed. [...]

[...] Otherwise other illnesses will be substituted.

[...] You will often become “allergic” to a drug simply because the body realizes that if the drug was accepted, all recourse to the solution of a particular problem would be cut off, or another more severe illness would result from the physical “cover-up” of the dilemma.

[...] There are crisis points here as with many physical illnesses, and left alone an individual may well work through to his own solution.

[...] It is important to note that regardless of the mental or physical illness adopted, it is chosen for a reason, and is a natural method that the individual himself knows he is physically and mentally equipped to handle.

[...] The facts are that you choose even the kind of illness that you have according to the nature of your beliefs. You are immune from ill health as long as you believe that you are.

[...] He will replace an idea of illness with one of health. [...]

In such a case you will realize that your previous ill health was caused by your belief. [...]

[...] While I did she had some thoughts of her own — that a person can choose illness, for example, in order to explore that reality, and to exert certain effects upon others around the ill person: thoughts I have had many times — my old idea of consciousness getting to know itself in as many ways as possible.

(She also had the idea that in our society we’re so educated and used to condemning ourselves if we have anything wrong with us, that we blind ourselves to the real reasons we fall ill to begin with. [...]

(The last two regularly scheduled sessions due, for Wednesday, August 17 and Monday, August 22, were not held because of my own illness.

[...] You should not accept a barrage of illness as natural, however, for it is not. [...]

[...] If you had done so, dear friend, you would not have become ill. [...]

[...] You ended your illness however not twice as quickly, but three times as quickly, as it would have been otherwise.

Ruburt provided himself with a background in which a parent was steadily, chronically ill, and in which the medical profession with its beliefs was in constant sight. [...] His background included far more than illness, however, and the medical profession, but Ruburt knew that the conventional medical framework was not the answer to human ills.

When you became ill the trigger was set to find another solution.

[...] Although the reason, or reasons, for your particular illness involves personal causes, indeed in one way or another all illnesses have a root within ego’s attempt to stand apart from the action of which it is composed, so that at times it fights against itself.

(One afternoon during my illness, as I lay drowsily in bed, I had two distinct impressions. [...]

[...] The daily walk that you plan is not only an excellent idea, but had you carried this through in the past, there is a good possibility that you would not have become ill. [...]

[...] Nor have I forgotten your request, Joseph, that I speak concerning your two experiences when you were ill. [...]

Until she became so ill that she was practically forced to go into the hospital, I’d always felt that my wife’s single-minded yet literal focus of intent was capable of lasting however long it took to reach a particular goal—whether for five minutes or fifty years. Her illness led me to question that premise, but now it’s back in place. [...]

[...] I had to learn that if I shared a marriage in which my wife had developed a chronic illness, then certain portions of me had also participated in that joint creation. [...] (In Chapter 1 of The Nature of Personal Reality, see the 613th session, for September 11, 1972.) And Jane and I are still exploring, still searching—together—for the factors within those larger frameworks of existence which make qualities like illness possible and understandable.

[...] In spite of her horror at the medical practices and suggestions she’s encountered, and in spite of her dismay at the physical damage the arthritis has caused in her temporal body, Jane will give up nothing until she—and/or her whole self—get out of the entire illness syndrome exactly what she wants to get. [...]

[...] Obviously, we made our choices in that respect long ago: As far as the deeply charged subject of Jane’s illness was concerned, we decided to keep most of our dream work on intuitive and unconscious levels. [...]