“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] When people become ill, they often blame themselves in such a way that unnecessary guilt is the result.

In the past some religious groups have also promoted beliefs that illness is a sign of God’s punishment, or vengeance for sins committed against his “goodness.”

[...] Within that framework, individually and as a whole, mankind may seem to make errors, to bring ill health, death or desolation upon himself, but he is still using those abilities to create a world.

(9:48.) Illness and suffering are not thrust upon you by God, or by All That Is, or by an outside agency. [...]

Illness and suffering are the results of the misdirection of creative energy. [...]

[...] Later when his mother fell ill, Bill made the subconscious connection with her illness and this earlier incident, and blamed his father for his mother’s illness.

[...] Seth said this is a common occurrence in illnesses being passed about among a family group. [...]

(Bill’s mother tried to project her illness to other members of the family, as often happens also. [...]

[...] Her illness was not the result of events in this life only, but of past lives also.

[...] (Pause.) It goes without saying that some people become ill rather than change their activities and their environments. They may also become ill, of course, to force themselves to make such changes.

[...] In this way most children are assured of their parents’ love, and hence need not resort to illness as a way of gaining attention or testing a parents’ love and devotion.

(Long pause.) Parents who are actually quite worried about their childrens’ susceptibility to illness often go overboard, stressing all kinds of sports and sports-related projects, but the children sense their parents’ unspoken fears, and they try to reassure their parents through achieving high goals or merit in sports programs.

(10:27.) There are as many reasons then for “earth illnesses” as there are for body illnesses. [...]

Slow death in a hospital, or an experience with an illness, would be unthinkable to these same people. [...]

[...] Sudden illnesses are thought of as frightening and unpredictable, with the sufferer a victim, perhaps, of a virus. [...]

[...] There was no inspiring local leadership, and a variety of different kinds of individuals felt ill at ease, depressed and forced to the wall.

But the search for health should be concentrated upon—not the state of ill health at any time. [...]

[...] He can learn to do this first of all by ceasing to project an image of himself as ill into the future. [...]

[...] He had some difficulty because of the childhood experience of seeing his mother ill for so long. [...]

[...] Ruburt has had his own negative attitudes about his illness to contend with, and often yours as well. [...]

In terms of earthly life as you understand it, it is overly optimistic to imagine that eventually all illnesses will be conquered, all relationships be inevitably fulfilling, or to foresee a future in which all people on earth are treated with equality and respect. For one thing, in that larger framework mentioned earlier in this book, illness itself is a part of life’s overall activity. [...]

This leads not only to private dilemmas, illnesses, and seemingly futile relationships — but also to national misunderstandings, entanglements, and world disorders. [...]

Illness in many ways is a learned response, and it follows patterns set up in the system having to do with memory banks, though we shall find a better word here.

Habitual illness will follow the lines of learned response and memory. [...]

We will have much to say along these lines, and a discussion of illness and memory will be shortly given.

[...] This is the case with many chronically-ill individuals. [...]

Before we discuss other varieties of health and illness as they more ordinarily appear, I want to bring up the subject of more or less extraordinary conditions — dilemmas of body or mind in early life that often seem to have no cause or meaning.

[...] You may be born in excellent health in one life, with a high intelligence and great wit, while in still another existence you may be born ill or crippled or mentally deficient.

The child may go from one illness to another, or simply display an odd disinclination for life — a lack of enthusiasm, until finally in some cases the child dies at an early age. [...]

Now: there is one main issue in particular that mitigates against a full life, generally speaking, and that shows itself in many instances in either physical illness, or in the “illness” of poor relationships, or lacks of fulfillment. [...]

[...] Life becomes a series of habits, and in the mentally ill, for example, you may have seemingly meaningless habits, compulsively performed. [...]

[...] Obviously this didn’t always apply, since some people became chronically ill, or died, or suffered devastating illnesses —but for the most part whatever helpings they managed to achieve came about through subconscious mental and bodily processes. [...]

[...] Indeed, they wouldn’t have the time or the talent to make consciously known to themselves all the details of their challenges that had made them ill to begin with. [...]

[...] I’ve managed to turn my thoughts away from such worries rather successfully lately, yet when they do return they can’t but help cause concern, so conditioned are we toward anything unusual about the body’s behavior representing a state of illness or unease. [...]

[...] Jane had a strong ill or grave feeling, meaning burial, here, and it is applicable. [...] My sister-in-law’s father is also very ill, having nearly died recently.

[...] “A very definite connection with illness however.” As explained, both the envelope object and the greeting card have connections with the illness of my father and Mr. Meeker.

[...] There were two illnesses however referred to, the severe one, and your own father’s. The illness of both men gave a strong impression and that is all.

A very definite connection with illness however. [...]

[...] The session was not actually a long one, and ended in Jane’s physical illness. [...]

[...] In fact, the session was cut short by Jane’s illness. [...]

[...] I immediately felt that the illness resulted from her conflicts over having the session, and the next day she confirmed this. [...]

In a society in which individuals were encouraged to work with the psyche and with specialists who understood it, illnesses would be seen as physical symptoms of inner imbalances. [...] That is, I am not speaking of mental ill health, meaning neurotic conditions. [...]

In the same way and seeing with the same kind of vision, illness can be healthy—and this is not meant to advocate suffering or poor health. [...]

(Pause)… Or a severe and rather sudden illness or accident. [...] If this is the wife’s death, then it is caused by something other than this long lingering illness of hers. [...]

(The first part of this session was held for John Pitre, who telephoned Jane about a week ago from Franklin, LA, on behalf of his ill wife, Peggy.

[...] Concerning the ill woman.

[...] People go from illness to illness and from poverty to poverty from lack of the knowledge I am giving you.

[...] Not in such a manner that illness would result therein, or, say, diseased organs, but only so far as function was concerned.

Up to now you both have been playing the illness game strongly, in your imagination both creating symptoms, imprisoning Ruburt within them in the present, seeing them in the future, and examining future events in the light of present symptoms.

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

[...] His illness brought up a million questions about the nature of illness and death, age, and so forth, backed up by your society’s negative beliefs, so you tried harder not to think of your friend Leonard, and of course you couldn’t relax. [...]

(Jane called Leonard Yaudes this morning while I was painting [I thought she was talking to Peg G.], and said later that she was picking up from Seth a good deal of excellent material on the body consciousness, our social mores re illness, and my own recent panicky hassles after Leonard’s operation a couple of weeks ago. [...]

[...] [See session 472 in Volume 9 of The Early Sessions.] Material on Jane’s symptoms, interior and exterior illness, inner-self constructions and challenges, recognizing problems, etc. [...]

Now he felt that Rebellers, representing his first book success, helped bring about your illness, and this feeling alone is responsible for much of this.

[...] You were not yet in the throes of your illness, and he felt that this represented the last straw to you—that it was not that good a book, not art as you thought your paintings to be, and yet it was published.

He felt that you were his accuser, and punished him by becoming ill. [...]