December 5, 1977

[DELETED SESSION]

[DECEMBER 5, 1977 9:25 PM MONDAY]

(This afternoon, as Seth suggested I do in the last session, I gave Jane beneficial suggestions for 15 minutes or so at naptime, until my voice became tired. I didn't try outright to hypnotize her, although certainly hypnotic factors must have been involved. I stressed her general relaxation, mentioning each part of her body often. I used the word "heavy" several times also, meaning that she could be aware of the normal weight of her body, but later wondered if it was a good word to use. Jane enjoyed the experience; she lay on her right side with her face covered, and I sat beside the bed. After I'd finished Jane said that although the experience was enjoyable she didn't feel "anything great." Then we slept.)

(When we woke up from our naps, however, we were considerably surprised, for it appeared that the suggestions had taken rather dee effect after all. Jane was so relaxed that she could hardly walk. She yawned again and again, and finally made it out to the couch for supper.

Her head rolled, her limbs seemed to behave on their own at times. Her body had spells of shivering, although she said she wasn't cold in the usual sense. I got her a sweater.) [The expression Jane used to describe her state was that she felt "more physically content" than she had for a long time.]

(I was really pleased. As we talked Jane said Seth was around, and she gave me a capsule summary of what he'd have said had we held a session.

It had to do with the power of suggestion, our reluctance to use it, and so forth. It's explored more fully in the session below, yet I also feel, from the description Jane gave me at the time, that Seth explores the whole thing from a different angle, too.)

[(Jane did want to try the session, even though she was so content.

She's also going to write her own account for her energy notebook. Even now I'm aware of how to proceed with future episodes of suggestion, and will try to implement the ideas. I also forgot to mention anything about Jane's eyes, which should have been done. I also didn't ask Seth about Jane's delayed reaction to the suggestions, so am making a note of that for next Saturday's session, at Jane's request. All in all, the affair was a great success, we feel, and most encouraging. We may have learned a great lesson.)]

Good evening.

(Good evening, Seth.)

Now: you use suggestion very well. Everyone does. People use words somewhat in the way that you might use dream images. One word carries many meanings, and no matter how spontaneously it seems you speak, even the most mundane remark is carefully chosen so that it serves as the spoken symbol for many unspoken ones.

Animals not only enjoy the sounds that they make, they are to some extent enchanted by them. The animals' interior world is silent. The sound of an animal's hoof upon the ground fills it with a sense of power and affirmation. The cat's meow (amused) is as enchanting to the cat as to its owner---meaningful sounds that communicate feeling.

These are enjoyed by all such species. Man's language, and the sound of the words, brings the greatest sense of accomplishment, biologically and sychically. The infant's discovery that it can communicate in such a way is indeed magical to it. No matter how wasteful with words a person might seem to be, each one contains an amazing economy, and is chosen recisely because it is a perfect carrier for certain intents or feelings that are all organized by that word. There are many obvious simple examples, such as the word "home," which can automatically organize psychic, emotional, geographical, natural, and time information.

In your daily lives, then, you use words so easily that you often overlook their power. You do not understand their implications, or the great inner organization that is behind the most simple utterance.

(9:30. The telephone began to ring.) Do as you wish.

("Maybe it'll stop," I said. We waited. Then:)

Now: you use words and their suggestive elements to reinforce and communicate your own purposes, beliefs, and intents. There are all kinds of verbal and body signs that tell you which words are to be attended to more than others, so that the quality of the words is strengthened or qualified. In a family, certain phrases are spoken over and over again through the years. The power of those communications rides upon the same kind of symbolism as dream images, in which each image is actually tightly organized.

You both have had this kind of communication through the years. I am simply stating a few examples. Years ago, when walking down the street with Ruburt, he exuberantly ahead of you, you often said "Slow down." A simple remark. Yet it did contain indeed, at the time, sexual, social, and work implications, and it was carefully chosen. It meant "Don't be so unconventional in public." It meant "Don't be ahead of me sexually," further meaning "Don't want sex when we are involved in other issues." At that time, long past, you were worried and somewhat jealous of Ruburt's work progress. You both knew what that remark meant.

That is an example of the kind of remark that acts as potent suggestion on many levels.

Nothing would make Ruburt comply, of course, to the suggestion unless it met with his own acceptance, because of his own fears.

Now look at another remark, made far more often. "You must use your abilities. I know you are highly gifted." That meant "You are highly gifted as a writer." Ruburt did not have to follow that suggestion either, but it also fitted in with his intents. He had his reasons for following it. The most careless remark in any situation is not careless.

That is the nature of communication.

Both of you use suggestion individually and together to suit your urposes and your beliefs. You yourselves, had you the time and inclination, could trace such issues as they operated in any area through the years. You felt Ruburt's psychic abilities, particularly in the beginning, so extraordinary, once you accepted them, that you each felt they must be protected---not only from himself, until you understood the abilities, but particularly from anyone who might scoff, ridicule, or attack. You felt in any case to some extent that those with any creative abilities had to so protect themselves.

Your daily conversation over the years has carried a steady stream of suggestion, in which your time must be protected almost at any cost. You have tempered many of those ideas. Suggestion has served you both well in many ways. Years ago you learned how potent suggestion could be when Ruburt used hypnosis with you, and you promptly dropped it. You did not use it with Ruburt, nor did Ruburt make any serious attempts to use it himself. You tried on a role for size, and did not like the fit.

Moreover, Ruburt would simply not go to work, and lose writing time to support you so you could paint.

(9:56.) You did not exactly change roles, you modified them.

It would be Ruburt who would stay home. He would accept the financial burden gladly, if he could combine it with his writing, and in return you would do much of the household chores. You would have financial security at least so that you could paint without money worries.

You would have a kind of isolation from the world. You did not like galleries, nor the give-and-take with the world. You waned a situation where you could each write and paint relatively undisturbed. Ruburt's relative fame almost upset the applecart, so further measures were taken by both of you. I want it understood that I am using you both as examples here, for such conditions operate in any situation.

You began to accept more physical responsibility for the house, and Ruburt let you. In a manner of speaking, you encouraged him to become more dependent in that way, while encouraging him to use his mental and sychic abilities. For these he received verbal reward. He went along, you see, for it suited his purposes also.

As you learned, you went through periods where you tried out alterations. Sometimes you did this together, but as explained some time ago, one or the other would cut the affair short because you were not jointly ready. The suggestions you were each using were invisible to you, while in your creative lives suggestion was quite apparent. Many eople have such invisible areas, because it suits their purposes.

Any attempts on Ruburt's part to help more in the kitchen or wherever, will for example now take time, in that you could perform the same chore far quicker ---so you will run up against your old beliefs about the value and use of time.

The exercise this evening, and its results, gave you a small preliminary example of the potency of suggestion when you decide to use it jointly for such a purpose.

The actual words you use, again, no matter how spontaneously chosen, have meanings on many levels, and speak of your own intent, Joseph, as much as Ruburt's. Before, you see, when I brought up such issues, you would become defensive, thinking "Must I watch every word I speak?" or "How can suggestion be that important?" Ruburt would react the same.

Yet, in those areas in which you are so proficient such issues would never arise. I do not need to tell you not to tell Ruburt that he is an untalented dumb ox. I do not need to tell Ruburt not to tell you that you are an untalented painter. Such things do not enter your heads. You do not have to watch yourselves every moment, so that you do not give negative suggestions in those areas.

Ruburt constantly tells himself he cannot walk properly. It is reasonable for him to say that now he is not walking roperly. The ability to walk properly is his, however. He can walk properly. He has hypnotized himself into believing that he cannot. You have helped reinforce that suggestion, for reasons that should now be obvious.

Now, you take a person gifted as a writer and constantly apply the suggestion that to the contrary the person cannot write. That person will soon stop his efforts. He will do no writing at all after a while.

He may write his name on a check, or scrawl an inadequate letter to a relative, and his very handwriting might even deteriorate. The writing ability is still there, though his performance is as impeded as Ruburt's is in his walking.

When you were discussing the letter from the young English gentleman, Ruburt was impressed with his progress. You said "But he was walking,"

meaning that Ruburt was not. Ruburt is walking---as poorly as our hypothetical writer is writing. His walking is impaired, but the ability is there. Your world is a world of suggestion, for suggestion implies directions, communications to act or not act in certain directions.

No one accepts suggestion against their will, but [few people know their will] . You are so used to believing that there is a conscious mind that you call the will, and an unconscious mind whose intents are unknown to you, and seemingly not yours, that you, meaning eople in general, are unaware of your own will, your own desire, your own intent. You are unaware as a people of your entire consciousness, and I am speaking now in pragmatic terms, not in esoteric ones.

(10:24.) An exercise such as this evening's simply allows you to unify your will with your body, and bridge the gap of separation artificially formed, to quiet the panic, to unify the so-called conscious and unconscious, and such exercises will release energy, not only for Ruburt's recovery, but will automatically revive your psychic lives. You are taking conscious control of the magic of words, in order to use them for new intents, and to dramatically change the old ones.

Unknowingly you went through the same process, when you initiated what you are now trying to get out of. There were no formal sessions, but there were impediments, for at that time you were momentarily convinced of your own physical difficulties. You had to suggest yourself out of those, with Ruburt's help. You had to convince yourself that you were not only capable, but physically capable enough to take over for Ruburt---and this at a time when he was carrying the heavy packages u the stairs.

He was not even making any money at his writing. In the face of that, you became the physically agile one. All of this was accomplished through suggestion. In a variety of ways, Ruburt was rewarded for mental and psychic spontaneity. You were rewarded for physical agility, and for your painting. He was discouraged from physical activity, and social spontaneity. This served for many years. Ruburt's strong constitution is amazing. Even his overall moods remained exuberant for years. There was no need to change for some time.

Your growing understanding, however, began to threaten that framework, for you saw that life itself was an art. In a way, much of what I told you threatened your framework, for my ideas of spontaneity clashed with your beliefs and the need for discipline above all. Your beliefs about time would prevent taking time out for relaxation exercises or for suggestion, as of this evening. You knew how well hypnosis worked, though the term is meaningless.

I would simply like you both, without stressing the issue overduly, to be more aware of your conversations, without monitoring them. See how you use suggestion naturally to reinforce and encourage your creative activities, and how you use it otherwise. You mean what you say. Your words are literal and symbolic at the same time.

It hurts Ruburt to walk. He is convinced of it, he has told himself that so often. One man who wrote you said he got sick to his stomach when he tried to write, and Ruburt could see easily the suggestion operating.

Try reversing the suggestion.

Can you write a little longer?

(Yes )

About Ruburt's predictions (about yesterday's mail; very successful) : many people feel such a performance impossible.

You know everything there is to know about those issues that concern your lives. That reviewer (Donald Newlove) has connections with Ruburt in Framework 2, because of Ruburt's old intents when he ublished in the male magazines.

He was relaxed this morning to some extent, allowing his abilities to flow, and any psychic experiments he tries now will be beneficial from many standpoints. "Hypnosis" experiments, again, will free your energy flows, both of you. Suggestion operates as an organizer, bringing you from Framework 2 exactly what you want. Your purposes have changed. You now want Ruburt to be flexible physically, to be physically agile. You must alter the suggestion, then, that Ruburt primarily, and you secondarily, have been giving. I will have more to say about suggestion Saturday. For it applies in other than verbal terms, of course.

Objects have suggestive value. For example, I would like one of your badminton rackets, and a birdie, around in sight, for its suggestive value. You need not touch the items for now. I will have some remarks Saturday also about the psychic horror story in the Enquirer , stressing the power of suggestion in another area.

End of session, and a hearty suggestive good evening.

("Thank you very much, Seth.")

(10:51 PM. As soon as the session ended Jane went right back into her extremely relaxed state. During the session she had been as active and animated as usual, however, her delivery good, etc. But now as she sat on the couch she once more had trouble coordinating. She yawned repeatedly, and so forth.)