“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) People with like ideas reinforce each other’s beliefs. You may meet with some misunderstanding when you suddenly decide to change your reality by changing your beliefs — according to the circumstances, you may be going in a completely different direction than the group to which you belong. The others may feel it necessary to defend ideas that all of you previously took for granted. In such cases your beliefs merged. Each individual has his or her own ideas about reality for reasons that seem valid. Needs are met. When you abruptly change your beliefs, then in the group you no longer have the same position — you are not playing that game any longer.

New paragraph: Because beliefs form reality — the structure of experience — any change in beliefs altering that structure initiates change to some extent, of course. The status quo which served a certain purpose is gone, new elements are introduced, another creative process begins. Because your private beliefs are shared with others, because there is interaction, then any determined change of direction on your part is felt by others, and they will react in their own fashion.

In your daily physical life you are usually concerned simply with changing your beliefs about yourself, and then changing the beliefs others hold about you. You will find conflicting beliefs within yourself and you must become aware of these. As an example, you may believe that you want to understand the nature of your inner self — you may tell yourself you want to remember your dreams, but at the same time still hold a belief in the basic unworthiness of the self, and be quite frightened of remembering your dreams because of what you might find there.

[...] During your life, any event must come through your creaturehood, with the built-in time recognition that is so largely a part of your neurological structure; so usually there is a lag, a lapse in time, during which your beliefs cause material actualization. When you try to change your convictions in order to change your experience, you also have to first stop the momentum that you have already built up, so to speak. You are changing the messages while the body is used to reacting smoothly, unquestioningly, to a certain set of beliefs.

Exterior conditions can always be changed if you understand the principles of which I am speaking. Diseases can be eliminated, even those that seem fatal — but only if the beliefs behind them are erased or altered enough so that their specific focusing effect upon the body is sufficiently released. [...] Your physical circumstances change automatically as your beliefs do. [...]

[...] When you alter these conscious beliefs through effort, then a period of time is necessary while the structure learns to adjust to the new preferred situation. If beliefs are changed overnight, comparatively less time is required.

[...] If through the concentrated use of psychic energy your body is cured by such a healer, you will also simply trade those symptoms for others unless you change your initial beliefs. Now sometimes a healer or a doctor, with his effectiveness in healing a condition, will show you by inference that the healing energy was always within yourself, and this realization may be enough to allow you to change your beliefs about health entirely.

[...] A good physician is a changer of beliefs. [...] Whatever methods or drugs he uses will not be effective unless this change of belief takes place.

One such image may represent one particular belief or it may stand for several. As you make lists of your beliefs you will find some of these pictures coming into your mind. [...] If you do not like what you see then quite consciously change the picture in your mind.

[...] He wants to enter it, and there is the important change in belief that has occurred. He is still frightened, and will be worried lest he become too involved in it, but he is willing to handle that on a conscious level now, which is another important change in beliefs.

As a result then of other beliefs Ruburt withdrew from the challenges of physical activity. Simply deciding on a conscious level to reenter that arena, in his present state, shows in itself a change of belief, for before he did not want to try, and considered it a threat to his work.

[...] His beliefs are changing. But in the context of that change, the challenge of extremes still appeals to him. [...]

A new belief in the present, however, can cause changes in the past on a neuronal level. [...] Present beliefs can indeed alter the past. [...]

[...] You may say, “I was born in a house on a certain street in a certain town, and no present belief to the contrary will change that fact.” If, in the present, one past event can be altered within your neuronal structure, however, then basically no event is safe from such change.

In somewhat the same way, a strong belief in a particular ability generated in the present will reach into the past and effect whatever changes would have had to occur there (with gestures) in order to now make the ability apparent.

[...] Change your beliefs and you change your material circumstances. Your beliefs now concerning finances and the automobile are actually keeping you from bettering your financial situation. [...]

Your belief otherwise automatically shuts you off so that the necessary climate, the psychic climate, is a barrier to what you want. The belief will cause attractions, in which physical circumstances will change. [...]

Your expectations alone will change your material circumstances. The belief that you can afford the kind of car you require will in itself form the circumstances that will make such an automobile literally possible.

Remember, even false beliefs will seem to be justified in terms of physical data, since your experience in the outside world is the materialization of those beliefs. So you must work with the raw material of your ideas, even while your sense data may tell you that a given belief is obviously a truth. To change your experience or any portion of it, then, you must change your ideas. [...]

I repeat: Your ideas and beliefs form the structure of your experience. Your beliefs and the reasons for them can be found in your conscious mind. If you accept the idea that the reasons for your behavior are forever buried in the past of this life, or any other, then you will not be able to alter your experience until you change that belief. [...]

Left alone, the self acts spontaneously as a unit, but as an ever-changing one. Listening to voices both within and without, the conscious mind is able to form beliefs that are in league with the self’s knowledge as received from material and nonmaterial sources. Then examination of beliefs takes its place along with other activities — naturally, easily, without effort. Once the conscious mind has accepted a collection of conflicting beliefs, however, a definite attempt is necessary to sort these out.

In my book—the next one—I am going to discuss more about the nature of personal beliefs. Your beliefs, that artists and writers were poor, were quite conscious. [...] When you changed them your reality began to change.

—so change your habits. [...] Your financial situation is increasing beyond your early dreams, because of a change in belief—so begin acting as if the normal pattern exists. [...]

[...] That is your belief at this time, and you had better change it—both of you—for he can—

As mentioned (in the 614th session in Chapter Two), the first important step is to realize that your beliefs about reality are just that — beliefs about reality and not necessarily attributes of reality. You must make a clear distinction between you and your beliefs. You must then realize that your beliefs are physically materialized. [...] To change the physical effect you must change the original belief — while being quite aware that for a time physical materializations of the old beliefs may still hold.

The only way out of it is to become aware of your beliefs, aware of your own conscious thought, and to change your beliefs so that you bring them more in line with the kind of reality you want to experience. Imagination and emotion will then automatically come into play to reinforce the new beliefs.

If this is not apparent to you, then it is because you have not as yet completely examined your beliefs. [...] You change the belief. [...]

So — once more — you form reality through your beliefs, and your most intimate production is your physical body. Your beliefs about it are constantly fed into inner data. [...] But the blueprint is made by your conscious beliefs. To change your body you change your beliefs, even in the face of physical data or evidence that conflicts.

[...] As you should know, the body’s inner environment changes constantly, and it is you who change it. Change is quite necessary and as a rule the body’s overall balance is maintained. But the directions that you give are often not clear or advantageous, and your beliefs largely determine the kind of information you send to that environment.

The inner self always attempts to maintain the body’s equilibrium and health, but many times your own beliefs prevent it from coming to your aid with even half of the energy available to it. Often only when you are in dire straits do you open up the doors to this great energy, when it is much too clear that your previous beliefs and behavior have not worked.

[...] If the analyst, over a period of time, should convince Augustus that his condition in the present resulted from some specific inhibited event in the past, and if the analyst was an intuitive and understanding man, then Augustus might change his beliefs enough so that some kind of “cure” was worked. [...]

[...] The chemical changes were caused by the transition in beliefs that operated, and not the other way around.

[...] Now again, if Augustus somehow changed his beliefs it is possible that even within that framework some kind of cure would be effected. [...]

The suggestions on trusting the body must be continued, for the body’s healing process now follows those beliefs. Before he was hampered by the initial beliefs, now nearly dissolved, that caused the disbelief in the body. Those body beliefs are now in the process of changing. As they change, bringing about improvements, you find them in reality as you understand it. The result you see is the materialization of the new beliefs, as before you saw the materialization of the old.

The vitamins do serve to help in the extra work being done by the body, of repair, although without the change in beliefs they would not be effective. [...]

Now balance has changed, so that the new beliefs outweigh the old ones and allow the body to respond.

[...] There will be sudden improvements on the physical level, as with the arm, but before that occurred there were changes in beliefs. [...]

I want to say something about beliefs that became obvious to him today concerning time and “work.” [...] His beliefs about time are important in relationship to his work ideas. As he noted, the belief was that he must be the young American poet, or the young American writer. Now we are dealing with an old belief system once shared to a large extent by you both.

His idea of changing the present through altering pictures in the past is also pertinent and good. Have him continue the practice as he began it—it aids in understanding beliefs, and it does alter the past and therefore the present.

[...] Actually, the belief itself may have changed a healthy genetic message into an unhealthy one. Ideally, a change of belief would remedy the situation.

Thoughts and beliefs do indeed bring about physical alterations. They can even — and often do — change genetic messages.

[...] “About the confusion that comes when you start trying to change beliefs, ‘cause they’re all raveled in together. [...]

So as your beliefs change there will be alterations in your experience and behavior, and points of stress, creative stress, while you are learning. Our rich man just mentioned may suddenly realize that his belief is limiting, in that he concentrated upon it exclusively so that money and health became his sole aims. The shattered belief may leave him open to illness, which would seem like a negative experience. [...]

Now if you are honest with your lists, you will finally come to what I call core beliefs, strong ideas about your own existence. Many other subsidiary beliefs, that earlier seemed separate from each other, should now appear quite clearly as being offshoots of core beliefs. [...] Once the core belief is understood to be a false one, the others will fall away.

Now let me give you a brief example of a core belief. It is a blanket belief: human nature is inherently evil. This is a core belief. [...] Experiences — both personal and global — will come into the perception of a person who holds this belief, that will only serve to deepen it further.

[...] As long as you belabor the physical condition you are not working at altering the beliefs. Regardless of their reasons, beliefs can be changed.

Altering the beliefs automatically changes the reasons. [...]

(12:20 AM.) A few remarks—they are very simple and to the point: examine your beliefs jointly and individually. [...] A series of subsidiary beliefs followed, to which you both most heartily and concretely subscribe. You must alter those beliefs. [...]

[...] That belief built up a body of habits so that even when he made headway in changing the basic belief at least, he was left with beliefs about the body that were secondary but habitual; beliefs shared by each of you about his body, so that the evidence was always present.

[...] He does need to hold on, walking, with all of these changes. [...] They provide for the insertion of the required and desired beliefs for use when needed.

(10:54.) Now Ruburt, because of his beliefs, “artificially” disciplined his muscles so that he would be forced to concentrate upon what it seemed you and he both thought was most important in life—your work.

You are not at the mercy of past beliefs, therefore. [...] If you are poor and want to have more money, and try to maintain a belief in abundance — while still faced with the fact of present poverty — you must in your reality make some symbolic move that shows you are willing to accept a change.

You perform habitually in certain manners as a result of your beliefs. Now if you willfully change some of those habits then you are also getting the message across. [...] In a very real manner of speaking, this means changing your viewpoint, that particular perspective with which you view your past and present and imagine your future.

[...] If so, you are already prepared to change your current beliefs and mode of action, and simply use the occurrences or habits of the past as a stimulus or motivation. [...]

First of all, you must realize that no one can change your beliefs for you, nor can they be forced upon you from without. You can indeed change them for yourself, however, with knowledge and application.

Within you is the ability to change your ideas about reality and about yourself, to create a personal living experience that is fulfilling to yourself and others. I would like you to write down your beliefs about yourself as you become aware of them. [...]

I would like you to recognize your own beliefs in several areas. You must realize that any idea you accept as truth is a belief that you hold. [...] You will, I hope, learn to disregard all beliefs that imply basic limitations.

You have often allowed old beliefs to the contrary to inhibit the exercise of your own mental acuity. You can indeed change that, but you must realize it, and want actively to do so. [...]

[...] Remember the change in focus I spoke of at our last session. Your intent to put these ideas to work builds an inner psychological support, and the more you act upon the beliefs the more that support grows.

You have been changing the beliefs of a lifetime, and you are helping others do the same. [...]