“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

2. At the same time, I began using the calindula medication on the ulcer twice a day when I would change the dressing. Yesterday Jane felt very uncomfortable as she sat in her chair on the water cushion. Last night when I helped her off it onto the bed, we discovered that she had soaked the cushion under her bottom for an area eight inches or so around—something she hadn’t done before. Mixed in with this were clots of blood. The discharge from the ulcer was much greater than we’d ever noted before. Yet when I changed the dressing the ulcer itself looked okay, although perhaps a bit redder in color. It appears to me healing by filling in a bit around the edges. But again we stopped using the medication. Jane slept well last night, and this morning I noted that there hadn’t been any discharge from the ulcer overnight when I changed the dressing as usual. No more blood, for instance.

Here are some observations on the medications you sent for Jane’s blue finger, and the ulcer. We don’t know whether there are really any connections between them and the situations I’ll describe, and would appreciate your comments when you have time.

Of course we wondered if her taking the medication you sent had anything to do with the little finger’s response. In a very short session Seth said it was related, but didn’t go into any details, so other factors are involved. Jane said one of them was that she felt the changes in the finger take place as she lay on her left side while I changed the dressing, on her ulcer that afternoon. In the meantime, we stopped using the medication.

I should add that we still used the Silvadene cream on the ulcer once a day, in the afternoon as usual when I changed the dressing. I applied the calindula in the morning and late at night in an effort to speed up the healing, if possible. We thought that if this appeared to be happening we’d stop using the Silvadene. Since we don’t know what else to do at the moment, we’ll be using just the dream.

[...] We have here this evening a secondary personality that attempts to rule the complete life of the personality of whom we have been speaking, and its name is ulcer. [...] The personality literally lives its life about the existence of the ulcer. It is hardly worth it, for the personality must be led to see that it itself has created the ulcer, both psychologically and physically, in most actual terms, and that it itself can indeed cast it out.

[...] The energy being used in the maintenance of the ulcer will already begin to take new channels. The thoughts and anticipations of the personality have already begun to stray from the all-important ulcer to the causes behind it, for in this case, as in many others, we find a strange phenomenon.

The personality can survive well without the ulcer. If this sounds like a foolish statement it is not, for in many such cases the ulcer is so concentrated upon, and so much energy is used in its maintenance, and it is used as such a scapegoat, that the personality is loath to be rid of it.

When I said earlier that the ulcer was not a part of you, like a leg or an arm, I meant this literally. Because you believe this literally, literally you have allowed the ulcer to become a part of your self-image, in the same manner that an arm or a leg is a part of a self-image. [...]

[...] It is because the man thinks differently that he has the ulcer, for the ulcer is the result of his characteristic method of thought. [...] The ulcer is formed intimately from the electrical reality that composes his thoughts. [...]

A man who has an ulcer, Joseph, he thinks differently than a man who does not have an ulcer. [...]

These simple suggestions will serve to guard the personality from many unfortunate circumstances, and if they are given nightly they will serve as an adequate protection against organic disease, such as ulcers.

You have created the framework, and you can remove the framework, as he has created the framework within which an ulcer can have reality.

[...] She said Gail Greene and others told her this morning that the ulcers are all doing much better, and that the two on her right knee, especially the one on the inside, are almost healed. [...]

The healing processes have considerably quickened, so that the healing of the ulcers will very soon (underlined) be an accomplished fact. [...]

[...] The signs of healing on the ulcer on the outside of her right knee are very pronounced, compared to the size of the wound there when it had burst after she broke her leg. [...]

I would suggest that our friend with the ulcer read our last two previous sessions, for this will bring home to him the fact that he does indeed, literally, consider his ulcer as much a part of himself as an arm or a leg. He considers the ulcer, in fact, more real and necessary than an arm or a leg, since his whole life now revolves about this illness.

[...] But one of our salesman has an ulcer and the other man does not. [...]

But this is not the only reason that one man has an ulcer and the other man has none, for we are involved here with characteristic reactions and with habits that have been engraved within each personality since last physical birth, and before. [...]

[...] The ulcer is caused by many things, and we have discussed some of them.

(“It wasn’t the ulcers,” I said, meaning that the will or the intent to move had been blocked. [...] After all, if the motion had been allowed on a daily basis, the ulcers would never have developed in the first place. [...]

[...] “Maybe it was my ulcers that kept me from moving all that time,” she said.

(Bill Gallagher asked Seth about a possible operation for his ulcers, although he has been feeling well. Seth replied that he saw no operation for Bill, should present trends continue, and that Bill should surmount the ulcer problem eventually. [...]

(A note added 5½ years later: In July 1971 Bill Gallagher did have an operation for his ulcers. [...]

Georgia — disc, ulcers, surgery

Steve — ulcers

[...] I explained that I hated to “put her on the spot” by asking if I had an ulcer, or a hernia, say, or gas or whatever. [...] At the same time, I said, I was curious as to whether I did have an ulcer, for instance—that if so, I could see that I’d created that situation in order to contend with certain challenges.)

[...] It also insisted I didn’t have a hernia or an ulcer, etc., although I told Jane that depending on what Seth said tonight I may seek medical help tomorrow. [...]

[...] Jane and I discussed the possibility that I may have an ulcer.

As a result some such people become severely afflicted with ulcers, so that their stomachs become sore and ulcerated at the acceptance of physical nourishment.

[...] All the ulcers are small, including those on her lower hips on the outside, above the buttocks. I haven’t seen the ulcers that are still covered for a long while. [...]

The ulcer problem can indeed be solved by the personality himself. [...]

The ulcer simply can be cured, but this will involve on the part of the personality a disciplined program of self-understanding. [...]

[...] The need for the ulcer was aggravated in the fairly recent past, but the personality is basically flexible enough so that adjustments can be made.

[...] Your friend’s ulcer for example is his problem in its entirety, constructed into the physical matter of his own organism.

One small note: A male with growths of any kind — kidney stones or ulcers, for example — has tendencies he considers feminine, and therefore “dependent,” of which he is ashamed. [...] In ulcers the stomach becomes the womb — bloodied, giving birth to sores — his interpretation of a male’s “grotesque” attempt to express feminine characteristics.

(“I’m not up to it tonight,” Jane said, “but there’s lots of material he could give on the ulcer thing right now. [...]

[...] Dr. G looked at it, remarked that she had a large ulcer on the knee, and quickly left with Mary before Jane was quick enough to ask him what he was talking to the nurse about. [...]

[...] When she returned Judy told us that Dr. G had written an order for a different ointment than Silvadene to be used on the knee ulcer; the new ointment would help debride the wound and promote faster healing. [...]

(When I got to 330 at 1:05 today I discovered that Jane was free of two more pathos on her ulcer sites—they were gone from inside her right knee, and her right shoulder. In addition, the ulcer on the outside of her right knee has shrunk so much that it no longer needs irrigation with each shift of the staff daily. [...]

[...] “I’m just not up to it,” Jane said, “but there’s a lot of stuff he could give on the ulcer thing right now. [...]

(Then Jane told me that in hydro Gail Greene said that one of the ulcers on her back was starting to bleed a bit—another good sign, since the bleeding is a sign of healing. The ulcer on Jane’s knee showed that sign before it began to heal.)

Whenever it is possible, I would suggest that our gentleman with the ulcer read our last sessions. Indeed, I believe that he has somewhat less of an ulcer now, although the degree is slight. [...]

[...] I will at another occasion give our Jesuit some rather fateful measures to contemplate, and perhaps we will ask him how many ulcers can sit on the head of a pin. [...]

[...] He also said his ulcer had been much improved lately; it had bothered him a little earlier today, for instance, but hardly at all this evening.

(After this our conversation turned to what Seth might say about the origins of Bill Gallagher’s ulcer. The ulcer had bothered him all day while Peg and he attended a family gathering. [...]

It is true, generally speaking, generally speaking, that those personalities who fear their dependent leanings may develop ulcers. Dependent feelings are quite universal, however, and it is obvious that all human beings do not have ulcers. [...]

[...] Bill said his ulcer was, now, not bothering him.

(Bill Gallagher’s ulcer was not bothering him. [...]

[...] The therapist in hydro this morning, who’d examined her last week, literally gasped when she examined the ulcer on each thigh: “I don’t believe this.” She told Jane the ulcers had diminished in size by at least half — and she went to get a measuring device like a micrometer to check the shrinkage. [...]