“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(10:42.) I am trying to put this simply — but without some illnesses, the body could not endure. Give us a moment… First of all, the body must be in a state of constant change, making decisions far too fast for you to follow, adjusting hormonal levels, maintaining balances between all of its systems; not only in relationship to itself — the body — but to an environment that is also in constant change. At biological levels the body often produces its own “preventative medicine,” or “inoculations,” by seeking out, for example, new or foreign substances in its environment [that are] due to nature, science or technology; it assimilates such properties in small doses, coming down with an “illness” which, left alone, would soon vanish as the body utilized what it could [of it], or socialized “a seeming invader.”

The body’s main purpose is not only to survive but to maintain a quality of existence at certain levels, and that quality itself promotes health and fulfillment. A definite, biologically pertinent fear alerts the body, and allows it to react completely and naturally. You might be reading a newspaper headline, for example, as you cross a busy street. Long before you are consciously aware of the circumstances, your body might leap out of the path of an approaching car. The body is doing what it is supposed to do. Though consciously you were not afraid, there was a biologically pertinent fear that was acted upon.

Now, there’s very recent discussion in medical circles that many cases of senility are caused by a “slow virus infection,” rather than just heredity or the traditional aging and oxygen starvation of the brain. The hope, and the unproven speculation, are that eventually such an infection might be treatable medically. But either way (whether senility arises through aging or infection), beliefs would come first, helping the whole body maintain its healthy performance well into old age, or encouraging it to deteriorate unnecessarily.