“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(I was greatly pleased that Seth answered one of my two questions, by saying that Jane did not have arthritis. This meant, I told her, that she didn’t have to think of herself as having “an incurable disease.” It would also free both of us from speculating about drugs that would “cure” arthritis. I can already see how her healing is going to influence future books, or notes I may write—for I’ll have to explain how the diagnosis of arthritis came about in the medical profession, how erroneous it was, and why we went along with it for so long, while all the time knowing, or at least feeling, that it wasn’t so, that there was more involved than Jane having “an incurable disease.” Interesting. Should make mighty interesting reading some day.

(1. Does Jane actually have arthritis? I knew that in the past Seth had insisted that she did not. The implications here can be staggering.

A fond good afternoon. I have told you many times in the past that Ruburt did not have arthritis—and I still take that stand.

[...] He finally believed in me when I said he did not have arthritis. [...]

[...] So again: he does not have arthritis. [...]

The psychological situations that give cause to Ruburt’s mother’s arthritis condition are not present in Ruburt, and once and for all, he does not have to fear such a dilemma. Quite simply arthritis, despite its being in his family, is not one of the diseases which will ever bother him.

[...] Surely he must be aware that his mother’s characteristic pose in bed was one that necessitated a complete turning of the upper body, whenever she wished to look one way or the other; and that her neck, because of her arthritis, could not turn normally.

Since Ruburt’s mother had often spoken most vehemently of Ruburt’s birth being a source of disease, that is her arthritis, and pain, subconsciously Ruburt feared on a basic level that his mother wished to punish him for causing her such pain.

12) old man in a wheelchair—not connected with the watch.
* Don knew a woman who was crippled with arthritis who spent a lot of time in a wheelchair. [...]

(Additional note by Rob regarding 12: Jane also had an impression of dark hair in connection with the arthritis data. [...]

None of the doctors we talked to would say outright that rheumatoid arthritis is inherited—only that “it seems to run in families,” and that more women than men develop it. [...] Yet except for her mother’s case there’s no history of arthritis in Jane’s family, outside of a “routine” trace of rheumatism in a couple of grandparents. [...]

[...] In recent years rheumatoid arthritis has been found to be an amazingly complicated disease involving a great number of the body’s immune factors. In the progression of rheumatoid arthritis one’s own immunologic system turns on the body and damages it. [...]

One of their common creations within the same time scheme was rheumatoid arthritis, of course, for Jane began to show her version of it some eight years before Marie died. [...] I even think that mother and daughter shared the same case of arthritis—there weren’t two separate instances of it.

[...] His rather long letter dealt with Dr. Childers’ nightshade diet for arthritis; the writer claimed he had a close friend who had recovered completely from rheumatoid arthritis that had plagued him since childhood, by following this diet—no potatoes, paprika [peppers], tomatoes, and a few other common foods of the nightshade family. [...]

[...] But then, Seth said Jane doesn’t have arthritis—so that’s what we’ve been going by. [...]

[...] The arthritis diagnosis, Jane said, would be the only one the medical profession could offer, with its very limited insights and viewpoint—whereas Seth has insisted all along that she didn’t have arthritis per se. I’d wanted him to at least refer to the arthritis subject tonight, hoping that the reinforced suggestions would help Jane mobilize her own strong creative powers. [...]

[...] The arthritis situation is as I gave it, but you are still faced with the medical interpretation of that situation, so that it is up to Ruburt to set it aside. [...]

[...] The increased glandular activity is also expected to have some beneficial effects upon Jane’s arthritis, and possibly upon her anemia (a condition that often accompanies arthritis). I asked that she be tested for food allergies, since I’d read that reactions to various foods and additives can trigger arthritis, but Dr. Mandali said that “if Jane is allergic she (Jane) would know it”—a position I came to most thoroughly disagree with. But usually, I thought, the trouble with having something diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis is that not only do you have it when you go into the hospital, but when you leave it. [...]

After some hesitation following my question about having a session this evening, Jane decided she wanted to contribute introductory material for Dreams. This was to be a new experience for us: Because of the arthritis she was having trouble even holding a pen, so she intended to dictate her material as though she were writing it herself in longhand. [...]

[...] They told me that my thyroid gland was very underactive, and that I had arthritis. [...]

It is not at all helpful, as once I told you, to continually refer to Ruburt’s condition as arthritis, with a formal title. [...]

[...] I also remembered Seth telling us some time ago not to call Jane’s condition arthritis. [...]

[...] First the girls are wrong about the cause of the slight swelling, then Fred gives her a lousy suggestion about arthritis! [...] Jane answered my question about whether Fred had any idea he was giving out rotten suggestions about arthritis by saying that it never occurred to him—or any other doctor. [...]

[...] He looked at it and said any swelling was “due to the arthritis.” [...]

[...] The arthritis symptoms as such have largely vanished. What you have now is a stiff condition, you see, and all arthritis symptoms have been cut off from any actual development, in your terms. There was never any arthritis, but now those adopted symptoms are disappearing.

[...] I was telling Jane earlier that now I wonder about some of what I wrote—stressing that Jane has arthritis, and the medical opinions about it, and so forth. I also said you didn’t think that she had arthritis, though, and that we’d chosen to go along with the doctors—”)

(“Has Jane got arthritis?”)

There is no arthritis here. [...]

[...] The adoption of the arthritis symptoms did have some mother identification, but also they were adopted simply because they were symptoms with which Ruburt was familiar. [...]

[...] At the same time she said she wanted to talk to an “expert” on arthritis. [...] It wasn’t until we returned home Friday afternoon that I began to see how upset Jane had become by thoughts of arthritis, vasculitis, angiograms, clots, drugs, operations, etc. [...]

[...] He feared that his own strong disinclination was simply the result of negative conditioning, and because he was interested in the doctor’s opinions, since this would be the first specialist in that field of arthritis—that he would have a chance to talk to, with all tests completed, and so forth. [...]

[...] Suffice it to note that in the mail last night I found prescription drugs from Dr. Blount, to my complete amazement; I also found a letter from the Arthritis Foundation, in which Dr. MacDuffie expressed his complete opposition to Dr. Blount’s treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. [...]

As I wrote in the first essay, “the trouble with having something diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis is that not only do you have it when you go into the hospital, but when you leave it.” Even if Jane had all of those operations—even if she ended up able to walk after a fashion—she’d still have arthritis. [...]

[...] All the doctors seemed to agree that I had a kind of burned-out case of rheumatoid arthritis, with little active inflammation. [...]

[...] This to Ruburt: before we close, I told you that he does not have arthritis. [...]

[...] It also fit in with some of my own recent ideas—that eventually the reviving thyroid gland would lead to the dispensation of medication while also rejuvenating the physical body in many ways—including the “arthritis.” [...]

[...] When we’d told Dr. K. what Dr C. had said, Dr K. had remarked that Dr C. “hadn’t seen as many cases of arthritis as Dr. S. had” —meaning of course that Dr C. wasn’t that much of an expert, and that his opinion could be discounted....)

[...] Marian Spaziani has some, though slight, trouble with arthritis and it was her daughter who became ill mentally. [...]

[...] The cod-liver oil should not be renewed, although he was told it is a protection against arthritis; the word itself operates with each dose in a negative way.

[...] During those years Marie was in her late 20’s and early 30’s, and already incapacitated by arthritis; and, to quote Seth from a session held in 1964, she had “… often spoken vehemently of Ruburt’s birth being a source of disease, and pain, that is of her arthritis … If Ruburt’s mother had it to do over, she would not have the child — and the child hidden within the adult still feels that the mother actually has the power, even now, to force the child back into the womb and refuse to deliver it …”