“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

His body’s improvement directly challenges those old beliefs, and brings them into the open. I do not want to overstate, but it is as if, for example, the upper portion of his body had been held in a vice. [...]

Some discomfort is involved, and that discomfort instantly brings up feelings about belief in the body. Ruburt’s faith in his body is growing, but each such situation, right now at least, can and should be a new learning process.

[...] Ruburt in particular, and you also, must understand that he can indeed recover normally, that he can indeed walk normally again—and moreover that normal walking is the body’s natural tendency—his body’s as well as anyone else’s.

[...] Her walking has been impaired also by the extreme sensitivity of her upper body. [...]

It may seem that the body’s release should only bring feelings of comfort and greater ease. The body mends itself in its own way, however, and you will put your own psychological judgments upon its sensations. [...] The body coming to life is active, and its activity may clamor at times. When you are not used to trusting the body, then those activities may seem to be causes for alarm—and such fears should be expressed—as long as the other definite feelings of comfort, ease, quickness, or flexibility are also expressed.

[...] All of this does require a trust in the body’s strength and resources. The improvements themselves are learning processes, as Ruburt learns to trust the body, as before he did not.

The body’s latest efforts to heal itself, Ruburt’s strong intent to become flexible, and your own help and encouragement, have led to a situation in which all of those tensions, exerted over a long period of time, are in the process of rather speedily being released. [...]

[...] Last week the eyes were relatively comfortable, for the process was continuing in lower portions of the body. [...]

What the body cannot stand today is the stress thrown upon it by the imagined stress or problems that it might be asked to face tomorrow, or next week, or 20 years from now. [...] You are seeking from future probabilities unpleasant—or perhaps the most unpleasant—circumstances, and actually demanding that the body handle that stimuli now (all intently).

[...] If one unpleasant event today automatically causes you to think of 20 more that might happen in the future and you dwell upon those, then you hopelessly confuse your body. [...] Stress results when the body does not know how to react, and therefore cannot react smoothly. [...]

[...] I’ve also developed the habit of repeating Seth’s quote from my own body, as he gave it in the deleted session for April 18: “You worry too much. [...]

He should relax when he feels that body loosening—go with it without worrying, for it leads to better body performance. [...]

[...] New body relationships are taking place, and that activity gives him a sense of disorientation as muscles, released, practice their flexibility, and learn to synchronize it.

[...] She feels the entire right side of the body especially in new motion.)

[...] The changes continue to take place in her body, including a periodic trembling in the muscles of her legs [entire body]. [...]

Now: this will indeed be a brief session, for it is an evening of body events, as far as Ruburt is concerned. [...] The body was freed to some extent following the session because Ruburt was reassured. [...]

When he feels like exerting himself he should do so, and when his body seems to want relaxation, then he should follow that line. [...]

The body has its own plan. [...]

Sometimes there is a cleavage, so to speak, where the body, prepared to act in the old way, begins to change its performance. Ruburt’s feelings, as the two sides of the body now begin to line up more properly, reflect this. [...] As this occurs the left and right portions of the body begin to align themselves. [...]

[...] These in everyone serve as trigger stimuli, to which often unconsciously the body responds, and with a highly specific kind of discrimination.

Over a period of time, then, certain portions of the body will habitually respond in any given overall positive or negative way. [...]

[...] His body, however, is continuing to improve.

I did remind Ruburt that the body, the body’s condition, the negative aspects of the body’s condition, that is not the problem.

The body is not the issue. As long as you consider the body’s difficulties as the issue, then you miss the point, and again are tempted to deal with the result as if it were the cause.

I am to some extent oversimplifying to make my point, but the body is in the condition it is because you did not feel close enough together, et cetera. [...]

The dream body is the one with which you are most familiar. It has been called the astral body. It strikes you as being physical, though you can do things with it that you cannot do with your physical body. [...] As a rule you do not go through walls with this body. This is the body that you use for ordinary dreams. [...]

These body forms however are necessary camouflages, for you cannot yet think of identity without some kind of physical body. Therefore you project yourself in a body form. [...]

At physical death, after the last reincarnation, then the normal body form is the dream body, and excursions are made from this point, you see. It is possible to suddenly switch from the third form to the dream body, but at a considerable jolt to the consciousness, as a rule. [...]

However there is a chemical energy used in all such out-of-body experiences. The chemical reaction results in an electromagnetic connection between the consciousness and the physical body, and without it there would be no return to the physical body, in your terms. [...]

[...] In that case he would walk more evenly, the body resting in a still inferior but dependable stance. Instead he is moving through those stances rather quickly, not feeling at rest in any of them as the body now advances toward an ordinary posture.

(11:44.) The exercises and the motives behind them have activated many portions of Ruburt’s body, shaking them loose from long-held positions. [...]

Once again, his attempts are at the point of success, so it is highly important that he trust the physician within, and the body’s ancient knowledge, and I know he has begun again to use those suggestions.

[...] The legs are capable, for example, now of straightening out far further, but the entire relationship between every portion of the body is being worked upon.

[...] You grew from a fetus into an adult, for instance, so obviously some part of you does know how to perform such an amazing activity as the growth and care of the physical body. The reasoning mind alone, however, cannot by itself grow even the smallest cell, or activate the life of even one molecule, yet the growth and maintenance of the body is constant.

[...] In any case, magic is everywhere in the operation of your body, and in the operation of the world.

[...] That is, the construction of your body and the construction of a world (pause) are produced with the greatest combination of order and spontaneity — an order and spontaneity that seems hidden rather than apparent (all intently).

The same hidden ability that promotes your body’s health and vitality also fulfills and preserves the world in general. [...]

(Through the day Jane herself received periodic insights from Seth about the condition, mostly having to do with her fears that she wasn’t walking enough, and not trusting the body to do its own thing in the recovery process. The gist of the impressions seemed to be that she ought to ease off walking while the body recovered —a very strange state of affairs, it seems to me, and a situation that has bothered me often before: Why should the body give up certain functions if it’s in the process of recovering? I doubt if I for one will ever be able to fully comprehend that kind of reasoning—whether from Seth or anyone else—since I think that as the body —any body—recovers, its range of activities expands correspondingly instead of shrinking. [...]

[...] I realize now that I simply cannot expect either of you at this point to trust Ruburt’s body to know what it is doing. [...] But you both become frightened, adding to the body’s stress further.

[...] Otherwise, my position is this —and here I repeat—because overall changes in position and balance are necessitated in order for normal walking to occur, one portion of the body at this point is not going to right itself so that, for example, Ruburt’s arms are suddenly straight while his knees are bent. All portions of the body are stretching. [...]

[...] Only in dealing with Ruburt’s body do you both become so literal, so determined. It seems you cannot trust the creative abilities’ biological translations—but the body is certainly as creative as the mind, in those terms. [...]

[...] Your religions tell you that man is sinful: The body is not to be trusted; the senses can lead you astray. [...] The body cannot react to generalized threats. [...] It builds up strong stresses, therefore, so that on many occasions a specific disease or threat situation is “manufactured” to rid the body of a tension grown too strong to bear.

I remind the reader that after break ended at 11:35 in the last session (the 804th in Chapter 1), Seth had this to say: “Left alone, the body can defend itself against any disease, but it cannot defend itself appropriately against an exaggerated general fear of disease on the individual’s part. [...] Usually, now, your entire medical systems literally generate as much disease as is cured — for you are everywhere hounded by the symptoms of various diseases, and filled with the fear of disease, overwhelmed by what seems to be the body’s propensity toward illness — and nowhere is the body’s vitality or natural defense system stressed.”

[...] They all undermine the individual’s sense of bodily security and increase stress, while offering the body a specific, detailed disease plan. But most of all, they operate to increase the individual sense of alienation from the body, and to promote a sense of powerlessness and duality.

[...] At best the public service announcements introduce the doctor as mediator: You are supposed to take your body to a doctor as you take your car to a garage, to have its parts serviced. Your body is seen as a vehicle out of control, that needs constant scrutiny.

If you pursue such sorrowful thoughts persistently you are reactivating that body condition. [...] This time the associated memories are pleasant, and the body changes accordingly.

[...] The beliefs activated the body’s cellular memory, weakening the body and impeding its function. [...]

[...] As a result the chemical nature of the body was instantly revitalized. [...] There were changes in the amount of sugar in the blood and an alteration in the flow of energy throughout the body.

[...] The body behaves as you think it must behave, so Augustus and Augustus Two, with their alternating patterns of behavior, caused the body to react in quite different ways.

This will allow the body to dismiss some of the alternate muscular cooperation set up, that served to support the body under poor conditions. The body could not dismiss these until the newly activated muscles began to come into their own, where they could be counted upon to maintain balance in a normal manner.

The rest of the body, however, had to work around these difficulties. Certain alternate muscular cooperations were set up that served to keep overall muscular functions going, and kept the body walking under impaired conditions. [...]

[...] There are various degrees of pressure in the body, supporting the organs, joints, and so forth. [...] Ruburt has excellent knowledge of the body’s motor capacities on an unconscious level. [...]

[...] Ruburt is aware of many of these sensations, so that he consciously will have some knowledge of how his own body works, and will be able from now on to have a greater conscious knowledge of its condition. [...] He will understand how the body feelings serve as important informative data.

[...] The healthiest body contains within it many so-called deadly viruses in what you may call (underlined) an inactive form — inactive from your viewpoint, in that they are not causing disease. They are, however, helping to maintain the body’s overall balance. In a way (underlined) in each body, the species settles upon a known status quo, and yet experiments creatively at many levels with cellular alterations, chromosomal variations, so that of course each body is unique. [...] Certain diseases can actually strengthen the body from a prior weaker state, by calling upon the body’s full defenses. [...]

(See the brief references to the therapy of value fulfillment in the opening notes for Session 862, with its Note 1. Today I’d mentioned to Jane how I remembered Seth’s saying — perhaps a couple of years ago — that still untouched in his material is the whole question of the body consciousness, and its role in health and many other fields. Seth had indicated that he had available a vast amount of material on the body consciousness, and that he could give it to us at any time. [...]

[...] Your body is changed biologically by your thoughts.

[...] You form your being by imaginatively considering such-and-such a possibility, and your thoughts affect your body in that regard. [...]

(Could her uneasy state be a sign of the body’s responding? She used to think that “if I used my body all the way, I wouldn’t work — which is hysterical, because now I do hardly anything.” She doesn’t know if her body can fully recover, yet she really believes that she can straighten out her broken leg. [...]

[...] She said that last night’s dream sequences were her celebration of her bodily abilities — her insistence on the excellent workings of the body. She thinks she hasn’t used the abilities of her body. [...]

[...] The child’s body will often reflect those conditions and reflexes that would be elicited if the so-called “play” events were real.

[...] You may dream that you are running or walking or flying, yet those activities are divorced enough from that area where imagination, motion, and physical actuality meet, so that your body remains quiet, relatively speaking, while you seem to be moving freely somewhere else.

You, while being of great help, could not subjectively follow him, or lead him into out-of-body activity, and so he felt he had only himself to rely upon. [...]

[...] The body expresses them instead.

[...] It is a fact that fears were hidden, that caused body beliefs to operate.

[...] On an inner level it meant, however, progressing slowly—probing the abilities, learning his way, while having a constant touch with the body, unpleasant or not, that would keep him physically oriented.

[...] Groaning and straining, making hoarse sounds of effort, she began to struggle to move her whole body. [...] “The whole body is trying to move,” I said, “as though you’re trying to move it in a dream.” [...]

(“You’re moving your body,” I laughed. “The body probably can’t wait to get going.”

(“Why, the body is trying to regain its coordination,” I said, thinking aloud.

[...] Jane’s whole body moved and twisted on the mattress, which flexed beneath her accordingly. [...]

[...] You are checking to see how you are doing—again, quite necessary when you believe that there is indeed something wrong with the body. In Framework 2, there is nothing wrong with the body, again. [...] There, you are confident enough to forget the body entirely, as you work with the nature of suggestion, and with the changing of mental patterns. There, you are so confident of the truth that your beliefs form reality that you need not check the body at every point to see how it is reacting, for you know it will respond as completely to the new suggestions as it did to the old, even though you recognize that practically speaking some time might be involved in Framework 2’s time.

Now: his body is continuing to regenerate. [...] It is allowing him to navigate while his body undergoes certain vital readjustments. [...] We have concentrated upon the fact that he could walk better, then, and that the body could improve itself —as indeed of course in that context it can, and does.

We will call your working framework, Framework 1 for purposes of discussion, and this higher framework, Framework 2. In Framework 1, time must be allowed for the body to respond, physical time. In Framework 2, and in the terms of Framework 1’s understanding, such body work is not really necessary, since the body itself has nothing wrong with it except the application of beliefs.

This is a way of encouraging Ruburt’s physical spontaneity, for his emotions and body each together want to move at such times. [...] Such periods also provide definite regeneration of the spirit, body, and mind. [...]

“Your body consciousness is like the consciousness of any animal,” he told us on January 23, for example. [...] They react in their own ways to suggestion, and in that regard your body consciousness responds to your conscious treatment of it. Think of your body, for the purpose of this discussion, as a healthy animal…. Animals and your own body consciousnesses have little concept of age. In a fashion almost impossible to describe, [those] consciousnesses—of the body and the animals—are ‘young’ in each moment of their existences. I am taking it for granted that you understand that I am referring to the ‘mental attitude’ of animals and of the body consciousness, for they do possess their own mental attributes—psychological colorations—and above all, emotional ‘states.’”

Seth’s material largely opposes science’s mechanistic model of the body wearing down within certain age limits, abetted as that model is by the power of the beliefs that say it will. He had much to say about how the out-of-place stresses we impose upon ourselves through our fearful projections into the future adversely affect our body consciousnesses, which are focused in the present. [...]